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YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


"  The  air  is  full  of  their  voices.  Their  books  are  the  world's  holiday  and 
playground,  and  into  these  neither  care,  nor  the  dun,  nor  despondency  can 
follow  the  enfranchised  man.'"  —  DREAMTHORP. 


YESTERDAYS  WITH  AUTHORS. 


BY 


JAMES    T.  .FIELDS. 


*Wai  it  not  yesterday  we  spoke  together?"  — Shakespeare. 


NE  W  ILL  USTRA  TED  EDITION. 


BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY. 

Cbe  Btoersifce  Press,  CambriUcre. 

1889. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871, 

BY    JAMES    T.    FIELDS, 

in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congressi  at  Washington, 


INSCRIBED 


TO  MY  FELLOW-MEMBERS  OF 


THE     SATURDAY    CLUB, 


CONTENTS. 


Pagi 

I.  Introductory         .                 1 

II.  Thackeray 11 

III.  Hawthorne 39 

IV.  Dickens 125 

V.  Wordsworth 251 

VI.  &£iss  Mitford 261 

VII.  "  Barry    Cornwall"  and  somk  ok  his  Friends    .        .  353 


INTRODUCTORY. 


"Some  there  are, 
By  their  good  "works  exalted,  lofty  minds 
And  meditative,  authors  of  delight 
And  happiness,  which  to  the  end  of  time 
Will  live,  and  spread,  and  kindle." 

WORDSWORTH. 


INTEODUCTOEY. 

SUEEOUNDED  by  the  portraits  of  those  I  have  long 
counted  my  friends,  I  like  to  chat  with  the  people 
about  me  concerning  these  pictures,  my  companions  on 
the  wall,  and  the  men  and  women  they  represent.  These 
are  my  assembled  guests,  who  dropped  in  years  ago  and 
stayed  with  me,  without  the  form  of  invitation  or  demand 
on  my  time  or  thought.  They  are  my  eloquent  silent 
partners  for  life,  and  I  trust  they  will  dwell  here  as  long 
as  I  do.  Some  of  them  I  have  known  intimately ;  several 
of  them  lived  in  other  times  ;  but  they  are  all  my  friends 
and  associates  in  a  certain  sense. 

To  converse  with  them  and  of  them  — 

"  When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  thought 
I  summon  up  remembrance  of  things  past "  — 

is  one  of  the  delights  of  existence,  and  I  am  never  tired 
of  answering  questions  about  them,  or  gossiping  of  my 
own  free  will  as  to  their  every-day  life  and  manners. 

If  I  were  to  call  the  little  collection  in  this  diminutive 
house  a  Gallery  of  Pictures,  in  the  usual  sense  of  that  title, 
many  would  smile  and  remind  me  of  what  Foote  said  with 
his  characteristic  sharpness  of  David  Garrick,  when  he 
joined  his  brother  Peter  in  the  wine  trade  :  "  Davy  lived 
with  three  quarts  of  vinegar  in  the  cellar,  calling  himself 
a  wine  merchant." 

My  friends  have  often  heard  me  in  my  "  garrulous  old 
age  "  discourse  of  things  past  and  gone,  and  know  what 


YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


they  bring  down  on  their  heads  when  they  request  me 
"  to  run  over,"  as  they  call  it,  the  faces  looking  out  upon 
us  from  these  plain  unvarnished  frames. 

Let  us  begin,  then,  with  the  little  man  of  Twickenham, 
for  that  is  his  portrait  which  hangs  over  the  front  fire- 
place. An  original  portrait  of  Alexander  Pope  I  certainly 
never  expected  to  possess,  and  I  must  relate  how  1  came 
by  it.  Only  a  year  ago  I  was  strolling  in  my  vagabond 
way  up  and  down  the  London  streets,  and  dropped  in  to 
see  an  old  picture-shop,  —  kept  by  a  man  so  thoroughly 
instructed  in  his  calling  that  it  is  always  a  pleasure  to 
talk  with  him  and  examine  his  collection  of  valuables, 
albeit  his  treasures  are  of  such  preciousness  as  to  make 
the  humble  purse  of  a  commoner  seem  to  shrink  into  a 
still  smaller  compass  from  sheer  inability  to  respond  when 
prices  are  named.  At  No.  6  Pall  Mall  one  is  apt  to  find 
Mr.  Graves  "clipp'd  round  about"  by  first-rate  canvas. 
When  I  dropped  in  upon  him  that  summer  morning  he 
had  just  returned  from  the  sale  of  the  Marquis  of  Has- 
tings's effects.  The  Marquis,  it  will  be  remembered,  went 
wrong,  and  his  debts  swallowed  up  everything.  It  was  a 
wretched  stormy  day  when  the  pictures  were  sold,  and  Mr. 
Graves  secured,  at  very  moderate  prices,  five  original  por- 
traits. All  the  paintings  had  suffered  more  or  less  decay, 
and  some  of  them,  with  their  frames,  had  fallen  to  the 
floor.  One  of  the  best  preserved  pictures  inherited  by 
the  late  Marquis  was  a  portrait  of  Pope,  painted  from  life 
by  Ptichardson  for  the  Earl  of  Burlington,  and  even  that 
had  been  allowed  to  drop  out  of  its  oaken  frame.  Horace 
Walpole  says,  Jonathan  Eichardson  was  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  best  painters  of  a  head  that  had  appeared  in  Eng- 
land. He  was  pupil  of  the  celebrated  Riley,  the  master 
of  Hudson,  of  whom  Sir  Joshua  took  lessons  in  his  art, 
and  it  was  Pdchardson's  "Treatise  on  Painting"  which 


^r 


INTRODUCTORY. 


inflamed  the  mind  of  young  Reynolds,  and  stimulated  his 
ambition  to  become  a  great  painter.  Pope  seems  to  have 
had  a  real  affection  for  Richardson,  and  probably  sat  to 
him  for  this  picture  some  time  during  the  year  1732.  In 
Pope's  correspondence  there  is  a  letter  addressed  to  the 
painter  making  an  engagement  with  him  for  a  several 
days'  sitting,  and  it  is  quite  probable  that  the  portrait 
before  us  was  finished  at  that  time.  One  can  imagine 
the  painter  and  the  poet  chatting  together  day  after  day, 
in  presence  of  that  canvas.  During  the  same  year  Pope's 
mother  died,  at  the  great  age  of  ninety-three  ;  and  on 
the  evening  of  June  10th,  while  she  lay  dead  in  the  house, 
Pope  sent  off  the  following  heart-touching  letter  from 
Twickenham  to  his  friend  the  painter  :  — 

"  As  you  know  you  and  I  mutually  desire  to  see  one  another,  I 
hoped  that  this  day  our  wishes  would  have  met,  and  brought  you 
hither.  And  this  for  the  very  reason  which  possibly  might  hinder 
your  coming,  that  my  poor  mother  is  dead.  I  thank  God,  her  death 
was  as  easy  as  her  life  was  innocent;  and  as  it  cost  her  not  a  groan, 
or  even  a  sigh,  there  is  yet  upon  her  countenance  such  an  expression 
of  tranquillity,  nay,  almost  of  pleasure,  that  it  is  even  amiable  to  be- 
hold it.  It  would  afford  the  finest  image  of  a  saint  expired  that  ever 
painting  drew ;  and  it  would  be  the  greatest  obligation  which  even 
that  obliging  art  could  ever  bestow  on  a  friend,  if  you  could  come  and 
sketch  it  for  me.  I  am  sure,  if  there  be  no  very  prevalent  obstacle, 
you  will  leave  any  common  business  to  do  this ;  and  I  hope  to  see 
you  this  evening,  as  late  as  you  will,  or  to-morrow  morning  as  earty, 
before  this  winter  flower  is  faded.  I  will  defer  her  interment  till  to- 
morrow night.  I  know  you  love  me,  or  I  could  not  have  written 
this;  I  could  not  (at  this  time)  have  written  at  all.  Adieu!  May 
you  die  as  happily!  " 

Several  eminent  artists  of  that  day  painted  the  likeness 
of  Pope,  and  among  them  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  and  Jervas, 
but  I  like  the  expression  of  this  one  by  Richardson  best 
of  all.  The  mouth,  it  will  be  observed,  is  very  sensitive 
and  the  eyes  almost  painfully  so.  It  is  told  of  the  poet, 
that  when  he  was  a  boy  "  there  was  great  sweetness  in  his 


YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


look,"  and  that  his  face  was  plump  and  pretty,  and  that 
he  had  a  very  fresh  complexion.  Continual  study  ruined 
his  constitution  and  changed  his  form,  it  is  said.  Richard- 
son has  skilfully  kept  out  of  sight  the  poor  little  decrepit 
figure,  and  gives  us  only  the  beautiful  head  of  a  man  of 
genius.  I  scarcely  know  a  face  on  canvas  that  expresses 
the  poetical  sense  in  a  higher  degree  than  this  one.  The 
likeness  must  be  perfect,  and  I  can  imagine  the  delight  of 
the  Rev.  Joseph  Spence  hobbling  into  his  presence  on  the 
4th  of  September,  1735,  after  "a  ragged  boy  of  an  ostler 
came  in  with  a  little  scrap  of  paper  not  half  an  inch  broad, 
which  contained  the  following  words  :  '  Mr.  Pope  would  be 
very  glad  to  see  Mr.  Spence  at  the  Cross  Inn  just  now. ' " 

English  literature  is  full  of  eulogistic  mention  of  Pope. 
Thackeray  is  one  of  the  last  great  authors  who  has  spoken 
golden  words  about  the  poet.  "  Let  us  always  take  into 
account,"  he  says,  "  that  constant  tenderness  and  fidelity 
of  affection  which  pervaded  and  sanctified  his  life." 

What  pluck  and  dauntless  courage  possessed  the  "  gallant 
little  cripple  "  of  Twickenham  !  When  all  the  dunces  of 
England  were  aiming  their  poisonous  barbs  at  him,  he 
said,  "  I  had  rather  die  at  once,  than  live  in  fear  of  those 
rascals."  A  vast  deal  that  has  been  written  about  him  is 
untrue.  No  author  has  been  more  elaborately  slandered 
on  principle,  or  more  studiously  abused  through  envy. 
Smarting  dullards  went  about  for  years,  with  an  ever- 
ready  microscope,  hunting  for  flaws  in  his  character  that 
might  be  injuriously  exposed  ;  but  to-day  his  defamers 
are  in  bad  repute.  Excellence  in  a  fellow-mortal  is  to 
many  men  worse  than  death ;  and  great  suffering  fell  upon 
a  host  of  mediocre  writers  when  Pope  uplifted  his  sceptre 
and  sat  supreme  above  them  all. 

Pope's  latest  champion  is  John  Ruskin.  Open  his  Lec- 
tures on  Art,  recently  delivered  before  the  University  of 
Oxford,  and  read  passage  number  seventy.     Let  us  read  it 


INTRODUCTORY. 


together,  as  we  sit  here  in  the  presence  of  the  sensitive 
poet. 

"  I  want  you  to  think  over  the  relation  of  expression  to  character 
in  two  great  masters  of  the  absolute  art  of  language,  Virgil  and 
Pope.  You  are  perhaps  surprised  at  the  last  named ;  and  indeed 
you  have  in  English  much  higher  grasp  and  melody  of  language 
from  more  passionate  minds,  but  you  have  nothing  else,  in  its  range, 
so  perfect.  I  name,  therefore,  these  two  men,  because  they  are  the 
two  most  accomplished  artists,  merely  as  such,  whom  I  know,  in 
literature ;  and  because  I  think  you  will  be  afterwards  interested  in 
investigating  how  the  infinite  grace  in  the  words  of  the  one,  the 
severity  in  those  of  the  other,  and  the  precision  in  those  of  both, 
arise  wholly  out  of  the  moral  elements  of  their  minds,  — out  of  the 
deep  tenderness  in  Virgil  which  enabled  him  to  write  the  stories  of 
Nisus  and  Lausus,  and  the  serene  and  just  benevolence  which 
placed  Pope,  in  his  theology,  two  centuries  in  advance  of  his  time, 
and  enabled  him  to  sum  the  law  of  noble  life  in  two  lines  which, 
so  far  as  I  know,  are  the  most  complete,  the  most  concise,  and 
the  most  lofty  expression  of  moral  temper  existing  in  English 
words :  — 

'  Never  elated,  while  one  man  's  oppressed  ; 
Never  dejected,  while  another  's  blessed.' 

I  wish  you  also  to  remember  these  lines  of  Pope,  and  to  make  your- 
selves entirely  masters  of  his  system  of  ethics ;  because,  putting 
Shakespeare  aside  as  rather  the  world's  than  ours,  I  hold  Pope  to 
be  the  most  perfect  representative  we  have,  since  Chaucer,  of  the 
true  English  mind  ;  and  I  think  the  Dunciad  is  the  most  absolutely 
chiselled  and  monumental  work  '  exacted '  in  our  country.  You 
will  find,  as  you  study  Pope,  that  he  has  expressed  for  you,  in  the 
strictest  language  and  within  the  briefest  limits,  every  law  of  art, 
of  criticism,  of  economy,  of  policy,  and,  finally,  of  a  benevolence, 
humble,  rational,  and  resigned,  contented  with  its  allotted  share  of 
life,  and  trusting  the  problem  of  its  salvation  to  Him  in  whose  hands 
lies  that  of  the  universe." 

Glance  up  at  the  tender  eyes  of  the  poet,  who  seems 
to  have  been  eagerly  listening  while  we  have  been  reading 
Buskin's  beautiful  tribute.  As  he  is  so  intent  upon  us, 
let  me  gratify  still  further  the  honest  pride  of  "  the  little 
nightingale,"  as  they  used  to  call  him  when  he  was  a 


8  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

child,  and  read  to  you  from  the  "  Causeries  du  Lundi " 
what  that  wise  French  critic,  Sainte-Beiue,  has  written 
of  his  favorite  English  poet :  — 

"  The  natural  history  of  Pope  is  very  simple  :  delicate  persons,  it 
h?s  been  said,  are  unhappy,  and  he  was  doubly  delicate,  delicate  of 
mind,  delicate  and  infirm  of  body ;  he  was  doubly  irritable.  But 
what  grace,  what  taste,  what  swiftness  to  feel,  what  justness  and 
perfection  in  expressing  his  feeling !  .  .  .  .  His  first  masters  were 
insignificant;  he  educated  himself :  at  twelve  years  old  he  learned 
Latin  and  Greek  together,  and  almost  without  a  master ;  at  fifteen 
he  reoolved  to  go  to  London,  in  order  to  learn  French  and  Italian 
there,  by  reading  the  authors.  His  family,  retired  from  trade,  and 
Catholic,  lived  at  this  time  upon  an  estate  in  the  forest  of  Windsor. 
This  desire  of  his  was  considered  as  an  odd  caprice,  for  his  health 
from  that  time  hardly  permitted  him  to  move  about.  He  persisted, 
and  accomplished  his  project ;  he  learned  nearly  everything  thus  by 
himself,  making  his  own  choice  among  authors,  getting  the  grammar 
quite  alone,  and  his  pleasure  was  to  translate  into  verse  the  finest 
passages  he  met  with  among  the  Latin  and  Greek  poets.  When  he 
was  about  sixteen  years  old,  he  said,  his  taste  was  formed  as  much 

as  it  was    later If  such  a  thing  as  literary  temperament 

exist,  it  never  discovered  itself  in  a  manner  more  clearly  defined 
and  more  decided  than  with  Pope.  Men  ordinarily  become  classic 
by  means  of  the  fact  and  discipline  of  education;  he  was  so  by 
vocation,  so  to  speak,  and  by  a  natural  originality.  At  the  same 
time  with  the  poets,  he  read  the  best  among  the  critics,  and  pre- 
pared himself  to  speak  after  them. 

•  •  •  •  • 

"  Pope  had  the  characteristic  sign  of  literary  natures,  the  faithful 

worship  of  genius He  said  one  day  to  a  friend:  'I  have 

always  been  particularly  struck  with  this  passage  of  Homer  where 
he  represents  to  us  Priam  transported  with  grief  for  the  loss  of 
Hector,  on  the  point  of  breaking  out  into  reproaches  and  invectives 
against  the  servants  who  surrounded  him  and  against  his  sons.  It 
would  be  impossible  for  me  to  read  this  passage  without  weeping 
over  the  disasters  of  the  unfortunate  old  king.'  And  then  he  took 
the  book,  and  tried  to  read  aloud  the  passage,  '  Go,  wretches,  curse 
of  my  life,'  but  he  was  interrupted  by  tears. 

..... 

"  No  example  could  prove  to  us  better  than  his  to  what  degree 
the  faculty  of  tender,  sensitive  criticism  is  an  active  faculty.     We 


INTRODUCTORY.  9 

neither  feel  nor  perceive  in  this  way  when  there  is  nothing  to 
give  in  return.  This  taste,  this  sensibility,  so  swift  and  alert, 
justly  supposes  imagination  behind  it.  It  is  said  that  Shelley,  the 
first  time  he  heard  the  poem  of  'Christabel'  recited,  at  a  certain 
magnificent  and  terrible  passage,  took  fright  and  suddenly  fainted. 
The  whole  poem  of  '  Alastor  '  was  to  be  foreseen  in  that  fainting. 
Pope,  not  less  sensitive  in  his  way,  could  not  read  through  that 
passage  of  the  Iliad  without  bursting  into  tears.  To  be  a  critic  to 
that  degree,  is  to  be  a  poet." 

Thanks,  eloquent  and  judicious  scholar,  so  lately  gone 
from  the  world  of  letters  !  A  love  of  what  is  best  in  art 
was  the  habit  of  Sainte-Beuve's  life,  and  so  he  too  will 
be  remembered  as  one  who  has  kept  the  best  company  in 
literature,  —  a  man  who  cheerfully  did  homage  to  genius, 
wherever  and  whenever  it  might  be  found. 

I  intend  to  leave  as  a  legacy  to  a  dear  friend  of  mine 
an  old  faded  book,  which  I  hope  he  will  always  prize  as 
it  deserves.  It  is  a  well-worn,  well-read  volume,  of  no 
value  whatever  as  an  edition,  —  but  it  belonacd  to  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  It  is  his  copy  of  "  The  Poetical  Works  of 
Alexander  Pope,  Esq.,  to  which  is  prefixed  the  life  of  the 
author  by  Dr.  Johnson."  It  bears  the  imprint  on  the 
title-page  of  J.  J.  Woodward,  Philadelphia,  and  w7as  pub- 
lished in  1839.  Our  President  wrote  his  own  name  in  it, 
and  chronicles  the  fact  that  it  was  presented  to  him  "  by 
his  friend  N.  W.  Edwards."  In  January,  1861,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln gave  the  book  to  a  very  dear  friend  of  his,  who 
honored  me  with  it  in  January,  1867,  as  a  New- Year's 
present.  As  long  as  I  live  it  wTill  remain  among  my 
books,  specially  treasured  as  having  been  owned  and  read 
by  one  of  the  noblest  and  most  sorely  tried  of  men,  a 
hero  comparable  with  any  of  Plutarch's,  — 

"  The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 

Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American." 

1* 


THA  CKERA  Y. 


What  Emerson  has  said  in  his  fine  subtle  way  of  Shakespeare  may  well 
be  applied  to  the  author  of  "  Vanity  Fair.''' 

"  One  can  discern  in  his  ample  pictures  what  forms  and  humanities 
pleased  him  ;  his  delight  in  troops  of  friends,  in  large  hospitality,  in  cheerful 
giving. 

•  •  •  •  • 

"  He  read  the  hearts  of  men  and  women,  their  probity,  and  their  second 
thought,  and  wiles  ;  the  wiles  of  innocence,  and  the  transitions  by  which 
virtues  and  vices  slide  into  their  contraries." 


it 


IL 

THACKERAY. 

DEAR  old  Thackeray !  — as  everybody  who  knew  him 
intimately  calls  him,  now  he  is  gone.  That  is  his 
face,  looking  out  upon  us,  next  to  Pope's.  What  a  contrast 
in  bodily  appearance  those  two  English  men  of  genius 
present!  Thackeray's  great  burly  figure,  broad-chested, 
and  ample  as  the  day,  seems  to  overshadow  and  quite 
blot  out  of  existence  the  author  of  "  The  Essay  on  Man." 
But  what  friends  they  would  have  been  had  they  lived 
as  contemporaries  under  Queen  Anne  or  Queen  Victoria  ! 
One  can  imagine  the  author  of  "  Pendennis  "  gently  lift- 
ing poor  little  Alexander  out  of  his  "  chariot "  into  the  club, 
and  revelling  in  talk  with  him  all  night  long.  Pope's 
high-bred  and  gentlemanly  manner,  combined  with  his  ex- 
traordinary sensibility  and  dread  of  ridicule,  would  have 
modified  Thackeray's  usual  gigantic  fun  and  sometimes 
boisterous  sarcasm  into  a  rich  and  strange  adaptability  to 
his  little  guest.  We  can  imagine  them  talking  together 
now,  with  even  a  nobler  wisdom  and  ampler  charity  than 
were  ever  vouchsafed  to  them  when  they  were  busy  amid 
the  turmoils  of  their  crowded  literary  lives. 

As  a  reader  and  lover  of  all  that  Thackeray  has  written 
and  published,  as  well  as  a  personal  friend,  I  will  relate 
briefly  something  of  his  literary  habits  as  I  can  recall 
them.  It  is  now  nearly  twenty  years  since  I  first  saw 
him  and  came  to  know  him  familiarly  in  London.  I  was 
very  much  in  earnest  to  have  him  come  to  America,  and 


14  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

read  his  series  of  lectures  on  "  The  English  Humorists  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century,"  and  when  I  talked  the  matter 
over  with  some  of  his  friends  at  the  little  Garrick  Club, 
they  all  said  he  could  never  be  induced  to  leave  London 
long  enough  for  such  an  expedition.  Next  morning, 
after  this  talk  at  the  Garrick,  the  elderly  damsel  of 
all  work  announced  to  me,  as  I  was  taking  breakfast  at 
my  lodgings,  that  Mr.  Sackville  had  called  to  see  me,  and 
was  then  waiting  below.  Very  soon  I  heard  a  heavy 
tread  on  the  stairs,  and  then  entered  a  tall,  white-haired 
stranger,  who  held  out  his  hand,  bowed  profoundly,  and 
with  a  most  comical  expression  announced  himself  as 
Mr.  Sackville.  Recognizing  at  once  the  face  from  pub- 
lished portraits,  I  knew  that  my  visitor  was  none  other 
than  Thackeray  himself,  who,  having  heard  the  servant 
give  the  wrong  name,  determined  to  assume  it  on  this 
occasion.  For  years  afterwards,  when  he  would  drop  in 
unexpectedly,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  he  delighted  to 
call  himself  Mr.  Sackville,  until  a  certain  Milesian  waiter 
at  the  Tremont  House  addressed  him  as  Mr.  Thackwary, 
when  he  adopted  that  name  in  preference  to  the  other. 

Questions  are  frequently  asked  as  to  the  habits  of 
thought  and  composition  of  authors  one  has  happened  to 
know,  as  if  an  author's  friends  were  commonly  invited 
to  observe  the  growth  of  works  he  was  by  and  by  to 
launch  from  the  press.  It  is  not  customary  for  the  doors 
of  the  writer's  work- shop  to  be  thrown  open,  and  for  this 
reason  it  is  all  the  more  interesting  to  notice,  when  it  is 
possible,  how  an  essay,  a  history,  a  novel,  or  a  poem  is 
conceived,  grows  up,  and  is  corrected  for  publication.  One 
would  like  very  much  to  be  informed  how  Shakespeare 
put  together  the  scenes  of  Hamlet  or  Macbeth,  whether 
the  subtile  thought  accumulated  easily  on  the  page  before 
him,  or  whether  he  struggled  for  it  with  anxiety  and 
distrust.     We  know  that  Milton  troubled  himself  about 


THACKERAY.  15 


little  matters  of  punctuation,  and  obliged  the  printer 
to  take  special  note  of  his  requirements,  scolding  him 
roundly  when  he  neglected  his  instructions.  We  also 
know  that  Melanchthon  was  in  his  library  hard  at  work 
by  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  both  in  summer 
and  winter,  and  that  Sir  William  Jones  began  his  studies 
with  the  dawn. 

The  most  popular  female  writer  of  America,  whose 
great  novel  struck  a  chord  of  universal  sympathy  through- 
out the  civilized  world,  has  habits  of  composition  pecu- 
liarly her  own,  and  unlike  those  belonging  to  any  author 
of  whom  we  have  record.  She  croons,  so  to  speak,  over 
her  writings,  and  it  makes  very  little  difference  to  her 
whether  there  is  a  crowd  of  people  about  her  or  whether 
she  is  alone  during  the  composition  of  her  books.  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  "  was  wholly  prepared  for  the  press  in  a 
little  wooden  house  in  Maine,  from  week  to  week,  while 
the  story  was  coming  out  in  a  Washington  newspaper. 
Most  of  it  was  written  by  the  evening  lamp,  on  a  pine 
table,  about  which  the  children  of  the  family  were 
gathered  together  conning  their  various  lessons  for  the 
next  day.  Amid  the  busy  hum  of  earnest  voices,  con- 
stantly asking  questions  of  the  mother,  intent  on  her  world- 
renowned  task,  Mrs.  Stowe  wove  together  those  thrilling 
chapters  which  were  destined  to  find  readers  in  so  many 
languages  throughout  the  globe.  No  work  of  similar  im- 
portance, so  far  as  we  know,  was  ever  written  amid  so 
much  that  seemed  hostile  to  literary  composition. 

I  had  the  opportunity,  both  in  England  and  America, 
of  observing  the  literary  habits  of  Thackeray,  and  it 
always  seemed  to  me  that  he  did  his  work  with  compar- 
ative ease,  but  was  somewhat  influenced  by  a  custom  of 
procrastination.  Nearly  all  his  stories  were  written  in 
monthly  instalments  for  magazines,  with  the  press  at  his 
heels.     He  told  me  that  when  he  began  a  novel  he  rarely 


1 6  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


knew  how  many  people  were  to  figure  in  it,  and,  to  use 
his  own  words,  he  was  always  very  shaky  about  then 
moral  conduct.  He  said  that  sometimes,  especially  if  he 
had  been  dining  late  and  did  not  feel  in  remarkably  good- 
humor  next  morning,  he  was  inclined  to  make  his  char- 
acters villanously  wicked ;  but  if  he  rose  serene  with  an 
unclouded  brain,  there  was  no  end  to  the  lovely  actions 
he  was  willing  to  make  his  men  and  women  perform. 
When  he  had  written  a  passage  that  pleased  him  very 
much  he  could  not  resist  clapping  on  his  hat  and  rushing 
forth  to  find  an  acquaintance  to  whom  he  might  instantly 
read  his  successful  composition.  Gilbert  Wakefield,  uni- 
versally acknowledged  to  have  been  the  best  Greek  scholar 
of  his  time,  said  he  would  have  turned  out  a  much  better 
one,  if  he  had  begun  earlier  to  study  that  language ;  but 
unfortunately  he  did  not  begin  till  he  was  fifteen  years 
of  age.  Thackeray,  in  quoting  to  me  this  saying  of 
Wakefield,  remarked :  "  My  English  would  have  been 
very  much  better  if  I  had  read  Fielding  before  I  was 
ten."  This  observation  was  a  valuable  hint,  on  the  part 
of  Thackeray,  as  to  whom  he  considered  his  master  in  art. 

James  Hannay  paid  Thackeray  a  beautiful  compliment 
when  he  said  :  "  If  he  had  had  his  choice  he  would  rather 
have  been  famous  as  an  artist  than  as  a  writer  ;  but  it  was 
destined  that  he  should  paint  in  colors  which  will  never 
crack  and  never  need  restoration."  Thackeray's  characters 
are,  indeed,  not  so  much  inventions  as  existences,  and  we 
know  them  as  we  know  our  best  friends  or  our  most 
intimate  enemies. 

When  I  was  asked,  the  other  day,  which  of  his  books  1 
like  best,  I  gave  the  old  answer  to  a  similar  question. 
"  The  last  one  I  read."  If  I  could  possess  only  one  of 
his  works,  I  think  I  should  choose  "Henry  Esmond." 
To  my  thinking,  it  is  a  marvel  in  literature,  and  I  have 
read  it  oftener  than  any  of  the  other  works,     Perhaps  thg 


THACKERAY.  I? 


reason  of  my  partiality  lies  somewhat  in  this  little  inci- 
dent. One  day,  in  the  snowy  winter  of  1852,  I  met 
Thackeray  sturdily  ploughing  his  way  down  Beacon  Street 
with  a  copy  of  "  Henry  Esmond '"  (the  English  edition, 
then  just  issued)  under  his  arm.  Seeing  me  some  way  off, 
.he  held  aloft  the  volumes  and  began  to  shout  in  great  glee. 
When  I  came  up  to  him  he  cried  out,  "  Here  is  the  very 
best  I  can  do,  and  I  am  carrying  it  to  Prescott  as  a  re- 
ward of  merit  for  having  given  me  my  first  dinner  in 
America.  I  stand  by  this  book,  and  am  willing  to  leave 
it,  when  I  go,  as  my  card." 

As  he  wrote  from  month  to  month,  and  liked  to  put 
off  the  inevitable  chapters  till  the  last  moment,  he  was 
often  in  great  tribulation.  I  happened  to  be  one  of  a 
large  company  whom  he  had  invited  to  a  six-o'clock  dinner 
at  Greenwich  one  summer  afternoon,  several  years  ago.  "We 
were  all  to  go  down  from  London,  assemble  in  a  particular 
room  at  the  hotel,  where  he  was  to  meet  us  at  six  o'clock, 
sharp.  Accordingly  we  took  steamer  and  gathered  our- 
selves  together  in  the  reception-room  at  the  appointed 
time.  When  the  clock  struck  six,  our  host  had  not  ful- 
filled his  part  of  the  contract.  His  burly  figure  was  yet 
wanting  among  the  company  assembled.  As  the  guests 
were  nearly  all  strangers  to  each  other,  and  as  there  was 
no  one  present  to  introduce  us,  a  profound  silence  fell 
upon  the  room,  and  we- anxiously  looked  out  of  the  win- 
dows, hoping  every  moment  that  Thackeray  would  arrive. 
This  untoward  state  of  things  went  on  for  one  hour,  still 
no  Thackeray  and  no  dinner.  English  reticence  would 
not  allow  any  remark  as  to  the  absence  of  our  host. 
Everybody  felt  serious  and  a  gloom  fell  upon  the  as- 
sembled party.  Still  no  Thackeray.  The  landlord,  the 
butler,  and  the  waiters  rushed  in  and  out  the  room, 
shrieking  for  the  master  of  the  feast,  who  as  yet  had  not 
arrived.     It  was  confidentially  whispered  by  a  fat  gentle- 


18  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

man,  with  a  hungry  look,  that  the  dinner  was  utterly 
spoiled  twenty  minutes  ago,  when  we  heard  a  merry  shout 
in  the  entry  and  Thackeray  bounced  into  the  room.  He 
had  not  changed  his  morning  dress,  and  ink  was  still 
visible  upon  his  fingers.  Clapping  his  hands  and  pirouet- 
ting briskly  on  one  leg,  he  cried  out,  "  Thank  Heaven,  the 
last  sheet  of  The  Virginians  has  just  gone  to  the  printer." 
He  made  no  apology  for  his  late  appearance,  introduced 
nobody,  shook  hands  heartily  with  everybody,  and  begged 
us  all  to  be  seated  as  quickly  as  possible.  His  exquisite 
delight  at  completing  his  book  swept  away  every  other 
feeling,  and  we  all  shared  his  pleasure,  albeit  the  dinner 
was  overdone  throughout. 

The  most  finished  and  elegant  of  all  lecturers,  Thackeray 
often  made  a  very  poor  appearance  when  he  attempted  to 
deliver  a  set  speech  to  a  public  assembly.  He  frequently 
broke  down  after  the  first  two  or  three  sentences.  He 
prepared  what  he  intended  to  say  with  great  exactness, 
and  his  favorite  delusion  was  that  he  was  about  to  aston- 
ish everybody  with  a  remarkable  effort.  It  never  dis- 
turbed him  that  he  commonly  made  a  woful  failure  when 
he  attempted  speech-making,  but  he  sat  down  with  such 
cool  serenity  if  he  found  that  he  could  not  recall  what  he 
wished  to  say,  that  his  audience  could  not  help  joining 
in  and  smiling  with  him  when  he  came  to  a  stand-still. 
Once  he  asked  me  to  travel  with  him  from  London  to 
Manchester  to  hear  a  great  speech  he  was  going  to  make 
at  the  founding  of  the  Free  Library  Institution  in  that  city. 
All  the  way  down  he  was  discoursing  of  certain  effects 
he  intended  to  produce  on  the  Manchester  dons  by  his 
eloquent  appeals  to  their  pockets.  This  passage  was  to 
have  great  influence  with  the  rich  merchants,  this  one 
with  the  clergy,  and  so  on.  He  said  that  although  Dick- 
ens and  Bulwer  and  Sir  James  Stephen,  all  eloquent 
speakers,  were  to  precede  him,  he  intended  to  beat  each 


THA  CKERA  Y. 


of  them  on  this  special  occasion.  He  insisted  that  I 
should  be  seated  directly  in  front  of  him,  so  that  I  should 
have  the  full  force  of  his  magic  eloquence.  The  occasion 
was  a  most  brilliant  one ;  tickets  had  been  in  demand  at 
unheard-of  prices  several  weeks  before  the  day  appointed  ; 
the  great  hall,  then  opened  for  the  first  time  to  the  public, 
was  filled  by  an  audience  such  as  is  seldom  convened, 
even  in  England.  The  three  speeches  which  came  before 
Thackeray  was  called  upon  were  admirably  suited  to  the 
occasion,  and  most  eloquently  spoken.  Sir  John  Potter, 
who  presided,  then  rose,  and  after  some  complimentary 
allusions  to  the  author  of  "  Vanity  Fair,"  introduced  him 
to  the  crowd,  who  welcomed  him  with  ringing  plaudits. 
As  he  rose,  he  gave  me  a  half- wink  from  under  his  spec- 
tacles, as  if  to  say :  "  Now  for  it ;  the  others  have  done 
very  well,  but  I  will  show  'em  a  grace  beyond  the  reach 
of  their  art."  He  began  in  a  clear  and  charming  manner, 
and  was  absolutely  perfect  for  three  minutes.  In  the 
middle  of  a  most  earnest  and  elaborate  sentence  he  sud- 
denly stopped,  gave  a  look  of  comic  despair  at  the  ceiling, 
crammed  both  hands  into  his  trousers'  pockets,  and  delib- 
erately sat  down.  Everybody  seemed  to  understand  that 
it  was  one  of  Thackeray's  unfinished  speeches  and  there 
were  no  signs  of  surprise  or  discontent  among  his  audi- 
ence. He  continued  to  sit  on  the  platform  in  a  perfectly 
composed  manner;  and  when  the  meeting  was  over  he 
said  to  me,  without  a  sign  of  discomfiture,  "  My  boy,  you 
have  my  profoundest  sympathy  ;  this  day  you  have  acci- 
dentally missed  hearing  one  of  the  finest  speeches  ever 
composed  for  delivery  by  a  great  British  orator."  And  I 
never  heard  him  mention  the  subject  again. 

Thackeray  rarely  took  any  exercise,  thus  living  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  other  celebrated  novelist  of  our 
time,  who  was  remarkable  for  the  number  of  hours  he 
daily  spent  in  the  open  air.     It  seems  to  be  almost  cer- 


20  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

tain  now,  from  concurrent  testimony,  gathered  from  phy- 
sicians and  those  who  knew  him  best  in  England,  that 
Thackeray's  premature  death  was  hastened  by  an  utter 
disregard  of  the  natural  laws.  His  vigorous  frame  gave 
ample  promise  of  longevity,  but  he  drew  too  largely  on 
his  brain  and  not  enough  on  his  legs.  High  living  and 
high  thinking,  he  used  to  say,  was  the  correct  reading  of 
the  proverb. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  tenderest  feelings,  very  apt  to  be 
cajoled  into  doing  what  the  world  calls  foolish  things, 
and  constantly  performing  feats  of  unwisdom,  which  per- 
formances he  was  immoderately  laughing  at  all  the  while 
in  his  books.  No  man  has  impaled  snobbery  with  such 
a  stinging  rapier,  but  he  always  accused  himself  of  being 
a  snob,  past  all  cure.  This  I  make  no  doubt  was  one  of 
his  exaggerations,  but  there  was  a  grain  of  truth  in  the 
remark,  which  so  sharp  an  observer  as  himself  could 
not  fail  to  notice,  even  though  the  victim  was  so  near 
home. 

Thackeray  announced  to  me  by  letter  in  the  early 
autumn  of  1852  that  he  had  determined  to  visit  America, 
and  would  sail  for  Boston  by  the  Canada  on  the  30th  of 
October.  All  the  necessary  arrangements  for  his  lecturing 
tour  had  been  made  without  troubling  him  with  any  of 
the  letails.  He  arrived  on  a  frosty  November  evening, 
and  went  directly  to  the  Tremont  House,  where  rooms 
had  been  engaged  for  him.  I  remember  his  delight  in 
getting  off  the  sea,  and  the  enthusiasm  with  which  he 
hailed  the  announcement  that  dinner  would  be  ready 
shortly.  A  few  friends  were  ready  to  sit  down  with 
him,  and  he  seemed  greatly  to  enjoy  the  novelty  of  an 
American  repast.  In  London  he  had  been  very  curious 
in  his  inquiries  about  American  oysters,  as  marvellous 
stories,  which  he  did  not  believe,  had  been  told  him  of 
their  great  size.     "We  apologized — although  we  had  taken 


THACKERAY.  21 


care  that  the  largest  specimens  to  be  procured  should 
startle  his  unwonted  vision  when  he  came  to  the  table 
—  for  what  we  called  the  extreme  smallness  of  the  oysters, 
promising  that  we  would  do  better  next  time.  Six  bloat- 
ed Falstaffian  bivalves  lay  before  him  in  their  shells.  I 
noticed  that  he  gazed  at  them  anxiously  with  fork  up- 
raised ;  then  he  whispered  to  me,  with  a  look  of  anguish, 
"  How  shall  I  do  it  V  I  described  to  him  the  simple 
process  by  which  the  free-born  citizens  of  America  were 
accustomed  to  accomplish  such  a  task.  He  seemed  satis- 
fied that  the  thing  was  feasible,  selected  the  smallest  one 
in  the  half-dozen  (rejecting  a  large  one,  "because,"  he  said, 
"it  resembled  the  High  Priest's  servant's  ear  that  Peter 
cut  off"),  and  then  bowed  his  head  as  if  he  were  saying 
grace.  All  eyes  were  upon  him  to  watch  the  effect  of  a 
new  sensation  in  the  person  of  a  great  British  author. 
Opening  his  mouth  very  wide,  he  struggled  for  a  moment, 
and  then  all  was  over.  I  shall  never  forget  the  comic 
look  of  despair  he  cast  upon  the  other  five  over-occupied 
shells.  I  broke  the  perfect  stillness  by  asking  him  how 
he  felt.  "  Profoundly  grateful,"  he  gasped,  "  and  as  if  I 
had  swallowed  a  little  baby."  It  was  many  years  ago 
since  we  gathered  about  him  on  that  occasion,  but,  if 
my  memory  serves  me,  we  had  what  might  be  called  a 
pleasant  evening.  Indeed,  I  remember  much  hilarity, 
and  sounds  as  of  men  laughing  and  singing  far  into 
midnight.  I  could  not  deny,  if  called  upon  to  testify  in 
court,  that  we  had  a  good  time  on  that  frosty  November 


evening. 


We  had  many  happy  days  and  nights  together  both  in 
England  and  America,  but  I  remember  none  happier  than 
that  evening  we  passed  with  him  when  the  Punch  people 
came  to  dine  at  his  own  table  with  the  silver  statuette  of 
Mr.  Punch  in  full  dress  looking  down  upon  the  hospitable 
board  from  the  head  of  the  table.      This   silver  figure 


22  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

—       i  IB, 

always  stood  in  a  conspicuous  place  when  Tom  Taylor, 
Mark  Lemon,  Shirley  Brooks,  and  the  rest  of  his  jolly 
companions  and  life-long  cronies  were  gathered  together. 
If  I  were  to  say  here  that  there  were  any  dull  moments 
on  that  occasion,  I  should  not  expect  to  be  strictly  be- 
lieved. 

Thackeray's  playfulness  was  a  marked  peculiarity ;  a 
great  deal  of  the  time  he  seemed  like  a  school-boy,  just 
released  from  his  task.  In  the  midst  of  the  most  serious 
topic  under  discussion  he  was  fond  of  asking  permission 
to  sing  a  comic  song,  or  he  would  beg  to  be  allowed  to 
enliven  the  occasion  by  the  instant  introduction  of  a  brief 
double-shuffle.  Barry  Cornwall  told  me  that  when  he 
and  Charles  Lamb  were  once  making  up  a  dinner-party 
together,  Charles  asked  him  not  to  invite  a  certain  lugu- 
brious friend  of  theirs.  "  Because,"  said  Lamb,  "  he  would 
cast  a  damper  even  over  a  funeral."  I  have  often  con- 
trasted the  habitual  qualities  of  that  gloomy  friend  of 
theirs  with  the  astounding  spirits  of  both  Thackeray  and 
Dickens.  They  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  standing  in 
the  sunshine,  and  to  be  constantly  warning  other  people 
out  of  cloudland.  During  Thackeray's  first  visit  to 
America  his  jollity  knew  no  bounds,  and  it  became  ne- 
cessary often  to  repress  him  when  he  was  walking  in  the 
street.  I  well  remember  his  uproarious  shouting  and 
dancing  when  he  was  told  that  the  tickets  to  his  first 
course  of  readings  were  all  sold,  and  when  we  rode  to- 
gether from  his  hotel  to  the  lecture-hall  he  insisted  on 
thrusting  both  his  long  legs  out  of  the  carriage  window, 
in  deference,  as  he  said,  to  his  magnanimous  ticket- 
holders.  An  instance  of  his  procrastination  occurred  the 
evening  of  his  first  public  appearance  in  America.  His 
lecture  was  advertised  to  take  place  at  half  past  seven, 
and  when  he  was  informed  of  the  hour,  he  said  he  would 
try  and  be  ready  at  eight  o'clock,  but  thought  it  very 


THACKERAY.  23 


doubtful.  Horrified  at  this  assertion,  I  tried  to  impress 
upon  him  the  importance  of  punctuality  on  this,  the 
night  of  his  first  bow  to  an  American  audience.  At  a 
quarter  past  seven  I  called  for  him,  and  found  him  not 
only  unshaved  and  undressed  for  the  evening,  but  raptu- 
rously absorbed  in  making  a  pen-and-ink  drawing  to 
illustrate  a  passage  in  Goethe's  Sorrows  of  Werther,  for 
a  lady,  which  illustration,  —  a  charming  one,  by  the  way, 
for  he  was  greatly  skilled  in  drawing,  —  he  vowed  he 
would  finish  before  he  would  budge  an  inch  in  the 
direction  of  the  (I  omit  the  adjective)  Melodeon.  A 
comical  incident  occurred  just  as  he  was  about  leaving  the 
hall,  after  his  first  lecture  in  Boston.  A  shabby,  ungainly 
looking  man  stepped  briskly  up  to  him  in  the  anteroom, 
seized  his  hand  and  announced  himself  as  "  proprietor  of 
the  Mammoth  Eat,"  and  proposed  to  exchange  season 
tickets.  Thackeray,  with  the  utmost  gravity,  exchanged 
cards  and  promised  to  call  on  the  wonderful  quadruped 
next  day. 

Thackeray's  motto  was  'Avoid  performing  to-day,  if  pos- 
sible, what  can  be  postponed  till  to-morrow.'  Although  he 
received  large  sums  for  his  writings,  he  managed  without 
much  difficulty  to  keep  his  expenditures  fully  abreast,  and 
often  in  advance  of,  his  receipts.  His  pecuniary  object 
in  visiting  America  the  second  time  was  to  lay  up,  as  he 
said,  a  "  pot  of  money  "  for  his  two  daughters,  and  he  left 
the  country  with  more  than  half  his  lecture  engagements 
unfulfilled.  He  was  to  have  visited  various  cities  in  the 
Middle  and  Western  States ;  but  he  took  up  a  newspaper 
one  night,  in  his  hotel  in  New  York,  before  retiring,  saw 
a  steamer  advertised  to  sail  the  next  morning  for  England, 
was  seized  with  a  sudden  fit  of  homesickness,  rang  the 
bell  for  his  servant,  who  packed  up  his  luggage  that  night, 
and  the  next  day  he  sailed.  The  first  intimation  I  had  of 
his  departure  was  a  card  which  he  sent  by  the  pilot  of  the 


24  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

steamer,  with  these  words  upon  it :  "  Good  by,  Fields ; 
good  by,  Mrs.  Fields  ;  God  bless  everybody,  says  W.  M.  T." 
Of  course  he  did  not  avail  himself  of  the  opportunity 
afforded  him  for  receiving  a  very  large  sum  in  America, 
and-Jie  afterwards  told  me  in  London,  that  if  Mr.  Astor 
had  offered  him  half  his  fortune  if  he  would  allow 
that  particular  steamer  to  sail  without  him,  he  should 
have  declined  the  well-intentioned  but  impossible  favor, 
and  gone  on  board. 

No  man  has  left  behind  him  a  tenderer  regard  for  his 
genius  and  foibles  among  his  friends  than  Thackeray.  He 
had  a  natural  love  of  good  which  nothing  could  wholly 
blur  or  destroy.  He  was  a  most  generous  critic  of  the 
writings  of  his  contemporaries,  and  no  one  has  printed  or 
spoken  warmer  praise  of  Dickens,  in  one  sense  his  great 
rival,  than  he. 

Thackeray  was  not  a  voluminous  correspondent,  but 
what  exquisite  letters  he  has  left  in  the  hands  of  many  of 
his  friends  !  "  Should  any  letters  arrive,"  he  says  in  a 
little  missive  from  Philadelphia,  "  addressed  to  the  care 
of  J.  T.  F.  for  the  ridiculous  author  of  this,  that,  and  the 
other,  F.  is  requested  to  send  them  to  Mercantile  Library, 
Baltimore.  My  ghostly  enemy  will  be  delighted  (or  will 
gnash  his  teeth  with  rage)  to  hear  that  the  lectures  in  the 
capital  of  Pa.  have  been  very  well  attended.  No  less 
than  750  people  paid  at  the  door  on  Friday  night,  and 
though  last  night  there  was  a  storm  of  snow  so  furious 
that  no  reasonable  mortal  could  face  it,  500  (at  least) 
amiable  maniacs  were  in  the  lecture-room,  and  wept  over 
the  fate  of  the  last  king  of  these  colonies." 

Almost  every  day,  while  he  was  lecturing  in  America, 
he  would  send  off  little  notes  exquisitely  written  in  point 
of  penmanship,  and  sometimes  embellished  with  charac- 
teristic pen-drawings.  Having  attended  an  extemporane- 
ous supper  festival  at  "Porter's,"  he  was  never,  tired  of 


THACKERAY.  25 


"  going  again."     Here  is  a  scrap  of  paper  holding  these 

few  words,  written  in  1852. 

"  Nine  o'clock,  v.  M.  Tremont. 

"Arrangements  have  just  been  concluded  for  a  meeting  somewhere 
to-night,  which  we  much  desire  you  should  attend.  Are  you  equal 
to  two  nights  running  of  good  time  ?  " 

Then  follows  a  pen  portrait  of  a  friend  of  his  with  a 
cloven  foot  and  a  devil's  tail  just  visible  under  his  cloak. 
Sometimes,  to  puzzle  his  correspondent,  he  would  write  in 
so  small  a  hand  that  the  note  could  not  be  read  without 
the  aid  of  a  magnifying-glass.  Calligraphy  was  to  him 
one  of  the  fine  arts,  and  he  once  told  Dr.  John  Brown  of 
Edinburgh,  that  if  all  trades  failed,  he  would  earn  six- 
pences by  writing  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Creed  (not 
the  Athanasian)  in  the  size  of  that  coin.  He  greatly 
delighted  in  rhyming  and  lisping  notes  and  billets.  Here 
is  one  of  them,  dated  from  Baltimore  without  signa- 
ture :  — 

"Dear  F th!     The  thanguinary  fateth  (I  don't  knoAV  what 

their  anger  meanth)  brought  me  your  letter  of  the  eighth,  yethter- 
day,  only  the  fifteenth !  "What  blunder  cauthed  by  chill  delay 
(thee  Doctor  Johnthon'th  noble  verthe)  Thuth  kept  my  longing  thoul 
away,  from  all  that  motht  I  love  on  earth?  Thankth  for  the  happy 
contenth !  —  thothe  Dithpatched  to  J.  G-.  K.  and  Thonth,  and  that 
thmall  letter  you  inclothe  from  Parith,  from  my  dearetht  oneth!  I 
pray  each  month  may  tho  increathe  my  thmall  account  with  J.  G. 
King,  that  all  the  thipth  which  croth  the  theath,  good  tidingth  of 
my  girlth  may  bring !  —  that  every  blething  fortune  yieldth,  I  altho 

pray,  may  come  to  path  on  Mithter  and  Mrth.  J.  T.  F th,  and  all 

good  friendth  in  Bothton,  Math.  !  " 

"While  he  was  staying  at  the  Clarendon  Hotel,  in  New 
York,  every  morning's  mail  brought  a  few  lines,  sometimes 
only  one  line,  sometimes  only  two  words,  from  him,  re- 
porting progress.  One  day  he  tells  me  :  "  Immense  haw- 
dience  last  night."  Another  day  he  says :  "  Our  shares 
look  very  much  up  this  morning."  On  the  29th  of 
2 


26  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

November,  1852,  he  writes:  "I  find  I  have  a  much 
bigger  voice  than  I  knew  of,  and  am  not  afraid  of  any- 
body." At  another  time  he  writes :  "  I  make  no  doubt 
you  have  seen  that  admirable  paper,  the  New  York 
Herald,  and  are  aware  of  the  excellent  reception  my 
lectures  are  having  in  this  city.  It  was  a  lucky  Friday 
when  first  I  set  foot  in  this  country.  I  have  nearly  saved 
the  fifty  dollars  you  lent  me  in  Boston."  In  a  letter  from 
Savannah,  dated  the  19th  of  March,  1853,  in  answer  to 
one  I  had  written  to  him,  telling  him  that  a  charming 
epistle,  which  accompanied  the  gift  of  a  silver  mug  he 
had  sent  to  me  some  time  before,  had  been  stolen  from 
me,  he  says  :  — 

"  My  dear  fellow,  I  remember  I  asked  you  in  that  letter  to  accef  t 
a  silver  mug  in  token  of  our  pleasant  days  together,  and  to  drink  a 

health  sometimes  in  it  to  a  sincere  friend Smith  and  Elder 

write  me  word  they  have  sent  by  a  Cunard  to  Boston  a  packet  of 
paper,  stamped  etc.  in  London.     I  want  it  to  be  taken  from  the 

Custom-House,  clooties  paid  etc.,  and  dispatched  to  Miss ,  New 

York.  Hold  your  tongue,  and  don't  laugh,  you  rogue.  Why 
should  n't  she  have  her  paper,  and  I  my  pleasure,  without  your 
wicked,  wicked  sneers  and  imperence?  I  'm  only  a  cipher  in  the 
young  lady's  estimation,  and  why  should  n't  I  sigh  for  her  if  I  like. 
I  hope  I  shall  see  you  all  at  Boston  before  very  long.  I  always 
consider  Boston  as  my  native  place,  you  know." 

I  wish  I  could  recall  half  the  incidents  connected  with 
the  dear,  dear  old  Thackeray  days,  when  I  saw  him  so 
constantly  and  enjoyed  him  so  hugely ;  but,  alas  !  many 
of  them  are  gone,  with  much  more  that  is  lovely  and 
would  have  been  of  good  report,  could  they  be  now 
remembered  ;  —  they  are  dead  as  —  (Holmes  always  puts 
your  simile  quite  right  for  you),  — 

"  Dead  as  the  bulrushes  round  little  Moses, 
On  the  old  banks  of  the  Nile." 

But  while  I  sit  here  quietly,  and  have  no  fear  of  any 
bad,  unsympathizing  listeners  who  might,  if  some  other 


THACKERAY.  27 

subject  were  up,  frown  upon  my  levity,  let  me  walk 
through  the  dusky  chambers  of  my  memory  and  report 
what  I  find  there,  just  as  the  records  turn  up,  without 
regard  to  method. 

I  once  made  a  pilgrimage  with  Thackeray  (at  my  request, 
of  course,  the  visits  were  planned)  to  the  various  houses 
Where  his  books  had  been  written ;  and  I  remember  when 
We  came  to  Young  Street,  Kensington,  he  said,  with  mock 
gravity,  "  Down  on  your  knees,  you  rogue,  for  here  '  Vanity 
Fair '  was  penned  !  And  I  will  go  down  with  you,  for  I 
have  a  high  opinion  of  that  little  production  myself."  He 
was  always  perfectly  honest  in  his  expressions  about  his 
own  writings,  and  it  was  delightful  to  hear  him  praise 
them  when  he  could  depend  on  his  listeners.  A  friend 
congratulated  him  once  on  that  touch  in  "  Vanity  Fair  " 
in  which  Becky  "  admires"  her  husband  when  he  is  giving 
Steyne  the  punishment  which  ruins  her  for  life.  "  Well," 
he  said,  "  when  I  wrote  the  sentence,  I  slapped  my  fist  on 
the  table  and  said,  '  That  is  a  touch  of  genius  ! '  " 

He  told  me  he  was  nearly  forty  years  old  before  he  was 
recognized  in  literature  as  belonging  to  a  class  of  writers 
at  all  above  the  ordinary  magazinists  of  his  day.  "  I 
turned  off  far  better  things  then  than  I  do  now,"  said  he, 
"  and  I  wanted  money  sadly,  (my  parents  were  rich  but 
respectable,  and  I  had  spent  my  guineas  in  my  youth,)  but 
how  little  I  got  for  my  work !  It  makes  me  laugh,"  he 
continued,  "  at  what  The  Times  pays  me  now,  when  I 
think  of  the  old  days,  and  how  much  better  I  wrote  for 
them  then,  and  got  a  shilling  where  I  now  get  ten." 

One  day  he  wanted  a  little  service  done  for  a  friend, 
and  I  remember  his  very  quizzical  expression,  as  he  said, 
"  Please  say  the  favor  asked  will  greatly  oblige  a  man  of 
the  name  of  Thackeray,  whose  only  recommendation  is, 
that  he  has  seen  Napoleon  and  Goethe,  and  is  the  owner 
of  Schiller's  sword." 


28  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

«        ■ 
1  think  he  told  me  he  and  Tennyson  were  at  one  time 

intimate ;  but  I  distinctly  remember  a  description  he  gave 
me  of  having  heard  the  poet,  when  a  young  man,  storm- 
ing about  in  the  first  rapture  of  composing  his  poem  of 
"Ulysses."    One  line  of  it  Tennyson  greatly  revelled  in, — 

"  And  see  the  great  Achilles,  whom  we  knew." 

"  He  went  through  the  streets,"  said  Thackeray,  "  scream- 
ing about  his  great  Achilles,  whom  we  knew,"  as  if  we  had 
all  made  the  acquaintance  of  that  gentleman,  and  were 
very  proud  of  it. 

One  of  the  most  comical  and  interesting  occasions  I 
remember,  in  connection  with  Thackeray,  was  going  with 
him  to  a  grand  concert  given  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago 
by  Madame  Sontag.  We  sat  near  an  entrance  door  in 
the  hall,  and  every  one  who  came  in,  male  and  female, 
Thackeray  pretended  to  know,  and  gave  each  one  a  name 
and  brief  chronicle,  as  the  presence  flitted  by.  It  was  in 
Boston,  and  as  he  had  been  in  town  only  a  day  or  two,  and 
knew  only  half  a  dozen  people  in  it,  the  biographies  were 
most  amusing.  As  I  happened  to  know  several  people 
who  passed,  it  was  droll  enough  to  hear  this  great  master 
of  character  give  them  their  dues.  Mr.  Choate  moved 
along  in  his  regal,  affluent  manner.  The  large  style 
of  the  man,  so  magnificent  and  yet  so  modest,  at  once 
arrested  Thackeray's  attention,  and  he  forbore  to  place 
him  in  his  extemporaneous  catalogue.  I  remember  a 
pallid,  sharp-faced  girl  fluttering  past,  and  how  Thackeray 
exulted  in  the  history  of  this  "  frail  little  bit  of  porce- 
lain," as  lie  called  her.  There  was  something  in  her 
manner  that  made  him  hate  her,  and  he  insisted  she  had 
murdered  somebody  on  her  way  to  the  hall.  Altogether 
this  marvellous  prelude  to  the  concert  made  a  deep  im- 
pression on  Thackeray's  one  listener,  into  whose  ear  he 
whispered  his  fatal  insinuations.     There  is  one  man  still 


THACKERAY. 


living  and  moving  about  the  streets  I  walk  in  occasion- 
ally, whom  I  never  encounter  without  almost  a  shudder, 
remembering  as  I  do  the  unerring  shaft  which  Thackeray 
sent  that  night  into  the  unknown  man's  character. 

One  clay,  many  years  ago,  I  saw  him  chaffing  on  the 
sidewalk  in  London,  in  front  of  the  Athenamm  Club,  with 
a  monstrous-sized,  "  copiously  ebriose "  cabman,  and  I 
judged  from  the  driver's  ludicrously  careful  way  of  land- 
ing the  coin  deep  down  in  his  breeches-pocket,  that  Thack- 
eray had  given  him  a  very  unusual  fare.  "  AVho  is  your 
fat  friend  ? "  I  asked,  crossing  over  to  shake  hands  with 
him.  "  0,  that  indomitable  youth  is  an  old  crony  of 
mine,"  he  replied  ;  and  then,  quoting  Falstaff,  "  a  goodly, 
portly  man,  i'  faith,  and  a  corpulent,  of  a  cheerful  look, 
a  pleasing  eye,  and  a  most  noble  carriage."  It  was  the 
manner  of  saying  this,  then,  and  there  in  the  London 
street,  the  cabman  moving  slowly  off  on  his  sorry  vehicle, 
with  one  eye  (an  eye  dewy  with  gin  and  water,  and  a  tear 
of  gratitude,  perhaps)  on  Thackeray,  and  the  great  man 
himself  so  jovial  and  so  full  of  kindness  ! 

It  was  a  treat  to  hear  him,  as  I  once  did,  discourse  of 
Shakespeare's  probable  life  in  Stratford  among  his  neigh- 
bors. He  painted,  as  he  alone  could  paint,  the  great  poet 
sauntering  about  the  lanes  without  the  slightest  show  of 
greatness,  having  a  crack  with  the  farmers,  and  in  very 
earnest  talk  about  the  crops.  "  I  don't  believe,"  said 
Thackeray,  "  that  these  village  cronies  of  his  ever  looked 
upon  him  as  the  mighty  poet, 


'  Sailing  with  supreme  dominion 
Through  the  azure  deep  of  air, ' 


but  simply  as  a  wholesome,  good-natured  citizen,  with 
whom  it  was  always  pleasant  to  have  a  chat.  I  can  see 
him  now,"  continued  Thackeray,  "  leaning  over  a  cottage 
gate,  and  tasting  good  Master  Such-a-one's  home-brewed, 


30  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  inquiring  with  a  real  interest  after  the  mistress  and  her 
children."  Long  before  he  put  it  into  his  lecture,  I  heard 
him  say  in  words  to  the  same  effect :  "  I  should  like  to 
have  been  Shakespeare's  shoe-black,  just  to  have  lived  in 
his  house,  just  to  have  worshipped  him,  to  have  run  on 
his  errands,  and  seen  that  sweet,  serene  face."  To  have 
heard  Thackeray  depict,  in  his  own  charming  manner,  and 
at  considerable  length,  the  imaginary  walks  and  talks  of 
Shakespeare,  when  he  would  return  to  his  home  from  occa- 
sional visits  to  London,  pouring  into  the  ready  ears  of  his 
unsophisticated  friends  and  neighbors  the  gossip  from 
town  which  he  thought  would  be  likely  to  interest  them, 
is  something  to  remember  all  one's  days. 

The  enormous  circulation  achieved  by  the  Cornhill 
Magazine,  when  it  was  first  started  with  Thackeray  for  its 
editor  in  chief,  is  a  matter  of  literary  history.  The  an- 
nouncement by  his  publishers  that  a  sale  of  a  hundred 
and  ten  thousand  of  the  first  number  had  been  reached 
made  the  editor  half  delirious  with  joy,  and  he  ran  away 
to  Paris  to  be  rid  of  the  excitement  for  a  few  days.  I 
met  him  by  appointment  at  his  hotel  in  the  Eue  de  la 
Paix,  and  found  him  wild  with  exultation  and  full  of 
enthusiasm  for  excellent  George  Smith,  his  publisher. 
"  London,"  he  exclaimed,  "  is  not  big  enough  to  contain  me 
now,  and  I  am  obliged  to  add  Paris  to  my  residence ! 
Great  heavens,"  said  he,  throwing  up  his  long  arms, 
"  where  will  this  tremendous  circulation  stop !  Who 
knows  but  that  I  shall  have  to  add  Vienna  and  Eome  to 
my  whereabouts  ?  If  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  New 
York,  also,  may  fall  into  my  clutches,  and  only  the  Eocky 
Mountains  may  be  able  to  stop  my  progress ! "  Those 
days  in  Paris  with  him  were  simply  tremendous.  We 
dined  at  all  possible  and  impossible  places  together.  We 
walked  round  and  round  the  glittering  court  of  the  Palais 
Eoyal,  gazing  in  at  the  windows  of  the  jewellers'  shops, 


THACKERAY.  31 


and  all  my  efforts  were  necessary  to  restrain  him  from 
rushing  in  and  ordering  a  pocketful  of  diamonds  and  "other 
trifles,"  as  he  called  them  ;  "  for,"  said  he,  "how  can  I  spend 
the  princely  income  which  Smith  allows  me  for  editing 
the  Cornhill,  unless  I  begin  instantly  somewhere  ? "  If 
he  saw  a  group  of  three  or  four  persons  talking  together 
in  an  excited  way,  after  the  manner  of  that  then  riant 
Parisian  people,  he  would  whisper  to  me  with  immense 
gesticulation:  "There,  there,  you  see  the  news  has  reached 
Paris,  and  perhaps  the  number  has  gone  up  since  my 
last  accounts  from  London."  His  spirits  during  those 
few  days  were  colossal,  and  he  told  me  that  he  found  it 
impossible  to  sleep,  "  for  counting  up  his  subscribers." 

I  happened  to  know  personally  (and  let  me  modestly 
add,  with  some  degree  of  sympathy)  what  he  suffered 
editorially,  when  he  had  the  charge  and  responsibility 
of  a  magazine.  With  first-class  contributors  he  got  on 
very  well,  he  said,  but  the  extortioners  and  revilers 
bothered  the  very  life  out  of  him.  He  gave  me  some 
amusing  accounts  of  his  misunderstandings  with  the 
"  fair  "  (as  he  loved  to  call  them),  some  of  whom  followed 
him  up  so  closely  with  their  poetical  compositions,  that  his 
house  (he  was  then  living  in  Onslow  Square)  was  never 
free  of  interruption.  "  The  darlings  demanded,"  said  he, 
"  that  I  should  re-write,  if  I  could  not  understand  their 

nonsense  and  put  their  halting  lines  into  proper 

form."  "  I  was  so  appalled,"  said  he,  "  when  they  set 
upon  me  with  their  '  ipics  and  their  ipecacs,'  that  you 
might  have  knocked  me  down  with  a  feather,  sir.  It  was 
insupportable,  and  I  fled  away  into  France."  As  he  went 
on,  waxing  drolly  furious  at  the  recollection  of  vari- 
ous editorial  scenes,  I  could  not  help  remembering  Mr. 
Yellowplush's  recommendation,  thus  characteristically 
expressed  :  "  Take  my  advice,  honrabble  sir,  —  listen  to  a 
humble  footmin :  it  's  genrally  best  in  poatry  to  under- 


32  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

stand  pumckly  what  you  mean  yourself,  and  to  igspress 
your  meaning  clearly  afterwoods,  —  in  the  simpler  words 
the  better,  p'raps." 

He  took  very  great  delight  in  his  young  daughter's  first 
contributions  to  the  Cornhill,  and  I  shall  always  remember 
how  he  made  me  get  into  a  cab,  one  day  in  London,  that 
I  might  hear,  as  we  rode  along,  the  joyful  news  he  had  to 
impart,  that  he  had  just  been  reading  his  daughter's  first 
paper,  which  was  entitled  "  Little  Scholars."  "  When  I 
read  it,"  said  he,  "  I  blubbered  like  a  child,  it  is  so  gooc\ 
>so  simple,  and  so  honest ;  and  my  little  girl  wrote  it,  every 
word  of  it." 

During  his  second  visit  to  Boston  I  was  asked  to  invite 
'him  to  attend  an  evening  meeting  of  a  scientific  club, 
•which  was  to  be  held  at  the  house  of  a  distinguished 
member.  I  was  very  reluctant  to  ask  him  to  be  present, 
for  I  knew  he  could  be  easily  bored,  and  I  was  fearful 
that  a  prosy  essay  or  geological  speech  might  ensue,  and  1 
knew  he  would  be  exasperated  with  me,  even  although  I 
were  the  innocent  cause  of  his  affliction.  My  worst  fears 
were  realized.  We  had  hardly  got  seated,  before  a  dull, 
bilious-looking  old  gentleman  rose,  and  applied  his  auger 
with  such  pertinacity  that  we  were  all  bored  nearly  to 
distraction.  I  dared  not  look  at  Thackeray,  but  I  felt 
that  his  eye  was  upon  ma  My  distress  may  be  imagined, 
when  he  got  up  quite  deliberately  from  the  prominent 
;place  where  a  chair  had  been  set  for  him,  and  made  his 
exit  very  noiselessly  into  a  small  anteroom  leading  into 
the  larger  room,  and  in  which  no  one  was  sitting.  The 
small  apartment  was  dimly  lighted,  but  he  knew  that  I 
knew  he  was  there.  Then  commenced  a  series  of  panto- 
mimic feats  impossible  to  describe  adequately.  He  threw 
an  imaginary  person  (myself,  of  course)  upon  the  floor, 
and  proceeded  to  stab  him  several  times  with  a  paper- 
folder,  which  he  caught  up  for  the  purpose.     After  dis- 


THACKERAY.  33 


posing  of  his  victim  in  this  way,  he  was  not  satisfied,  for 
the  dull  lecture  still  went  on  in  the  other  room,  and  he 
fired  an  imaginary  revolver  several  times  at  an  imaginary 
head.  Still,  the  droning  speaker  proceeded  with  his  frozen 
subject  (it  was  something  about  the  Arctic  regions,  if  I 
remember  rightly),  and  now  began  the  greatest  panto- 
mimic scene  of  all,  namely,  murder  by  poison,  after  the 
manner  in  which  the  player  king  is  disposed  of  in  Hamlet. 
Thackeray  had  found  a  small  vial  on  the  mantel-shelf, 
and  out  of  that  he  proceeded  to  pour  the  imaginary  "juice 
of  cursed  hebenon"  into  the  imaginary  porches  of  some- 
body's ears.  The  whole  thing  was  inimitably  done,  and 
I  hoped  nobody  saw  it  but  myself ;  but  years  afterwards, 
a  ponderous,  fat-witted  young  man  put  the  question 
squarely  to  me:  "What  ivas  the  matter  with  Mr.  Thack- 
eray, that  night  the  club  met  at  Mr. 's  house  ?  " 

Overhearing  me  say  one  morning  something  about  the 
vast  attractions  of  London  to  a  greenhorn  like  myself,  he 
broke  in  with,  "  Yes,  but  you  have  not  seen  the  grandest 
one  yet !  Go  with  me  to-day  to  St.  Paul's  and  hear 
the  charity  children  sing."  So  we  went,  and  1  saw  the 
"  head  cynic  of  literature,"  the  "  hater  of  humanity,"  as  a 
critical  dunce  in  the  Times  once  called  him,  hiding  his 
bowed  face,  wet  with  tears,  while  his  whole  frame  shook 
with  emotion,  as  the  children  of  poverty  rose  to  pour  out 
their  anthems  of  praise.  Afterwards  he  wrote  in  one  of 
his  books  this  passage,  which  seems  to  me  perfect  in  its 
feeling  and  tone  :  — 

"  And  yet  there  is  one  day  in  the  year  when  I  think  St.  Paul's 
presents  the  noblest  sight  in  the  whole  world  ;  when  five  thousand 
charity  children,  with  cheeks  like  nosegays,  and  sweet,  fresh  voices, 
sing  the  hymn  which  makes  every  heart  thrill  with  praise  and 
happiness.  I  have  seen  a  hundred  grand  sights  in.  the  world,  —  coro- 
nations, Parisian  splendors,  Crystal  Palace  openings,  Pope's  chapels 
with  their  processions  of  long-tahed  cardinals  and  quavering  choirs 
of  fat  soprani,  —  but  think  in  all  Christendom  there  is  no  such 
2*  C 


34  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

8ight  as  Charity  Children's  day.  Non  Anglei,  sed  angeli.  As  one 
looks  at  that  beautiful  multitude  of  innocents :  as  the  first  note 
strikes :  indeed  one  may  almost  fancy  that  cherubs  are  singing." 

I  parted  with  Thackeray  for  the  last  time  in  the  street, 
at  midnight,  in  London,  a  few  months  before  his  death. 
The  Cornhill  Magazine,  under  his  editorship,  having 
proved  a  very  great  success,  grand  dinners  were  given 
every  month  in  honor  of  the  new  venture.  We  had  been 
sitting  late  at  one  of  these  festivals,  and,  as  it  was  getting 
toward  morning,  I  thought  it  wise,  as  far  as  I  was  con- 
cerned, to  be  moving  homeward  before  the  sun  rose. 
Seeing  my  intention  to  withdraw,  he  insisted  on  driving 
me  in  his  brougham  to  my  lodgings.  When  we  reached 
the  outside  door  of  our  host,  Thackeray's  servant,  seeing 
a  stranger  with  his  master,  touched  his  hat  and  asked 
where  he  should  drive  us.  It  was  then  between  one  and 
two  o'clock,  —  time  certainly  for  all  decent  diners-out  to  be 
at  rest.  Thackeray  put  on  one  of  his  most  quizzical  ex- 
pressions, and  said  to  John,  in  answer  to  his  question,  "  I 
tli  ink  we  will  make  a  morning  call  on  the  Lord  Bishop  of 
London."  John  knew  his  master's  quips  and  cranks  too 
well  to  suppose  he  was  in  earnest,  so  I  gave  him  my 
address,  and  we  went  on.  When  we  reached  my  lodgings 
the  clocks  were  striking  two,  and  the  early  morning  air 
was  raw  and  piercing.  Opposing  all  my  entreaties  for 
leave-taking  in  the  carriage,  he  insisted  upon  getting  out 
on  the  sidewalk  and  escorting  me  up  to  my  door,  saying, 
with  a  mock  heroic  protest  to  the  heavens  above  us, 
"  That  it  would  be  shameful  for  a  full-blooded  Britisher 
to  leave  an  unprotected  Yankee  friend  exposed  to  ruffians, 
who  prowl  about  the  streets  with  an  eye  to  plunder." 
Then  giving  me  a  gigantic  embrace,  he  sang  a  verse  of 
which  he  knew  me  to  be  very  fond  ;  and  so  vanished  out 
of  my  sight  the  great-hearted  author  of  "  Pendennis"  and 
"  Vanity  Fair."     But  I  think  of  him  still  as  moving,  in 


THACKERAY.  35 


his  own  stately  way,  up  and  down  the  crowded  thorough- 
fares of  London,  dropping  in  at  the  Garrick,  or  sitting  at 
the  window  of  the  Athenaeum  Club,  and  watching  the 
stupendous  tide  of  life  that  is  ever  moving  past  in  that 
wonderful  city. 

Thackeray  was  a  master  in  every  sense,  having  as  it 
were,  in  himself,  a  double  quantity  of  being.  Robust 
humor  and  lofty  sentiment  alternated  so  strangely  in  him, 
that  sometimes  he  seemed  like  the  natural  son  of  Eabelais, 
and  at  others  he  rose  up  a  very  twin  brother  of  the  Strat- 
ford Seer.  There  was  nothing  in  him  amorphous  and 
unconsidered.  Whatever  he  chose  to  do  was  always 
perfectly  done.  There  was  a  genuine  Thackeray  flavor  in 
everything  he  was  willing  to  say  or  to  write.  He  detected 
with  unfailing  skill  the  good  or  the  vile  wherever  it 
existed.  He  had  an  unerring  eye,  a  firm  understanding, 
and  abounding  truth.  "  Two  of  his  great  master  powers," 
said  the  chairman  at  a  dinner  given  to  him  many  years 
ago  in  Edinburgh,  "are  satire  and  sympathy."  George 
Brimley  remarked, "  That  he  could  not  have  painted  Vanity 
Fair  as  he  has,  unless  Eden  had  been  shining  in  his  inner 
eye."  He  had,  indeed,  an  awful  insight,  with  a  world 
of  solemn  tenderness  and  simplicity,  in  his  composition. 
Those  who  heard  the  same  voice  that  withered  the  memory 
of  King  George  the  Fourth  repeat  "  The  spacious  firma- 
ment on  high  "  have  a  recollection  not  easily  to  be  blotted 
from  the  mind,  and  I  have  a  kind  of  pity  for  all  who 
were  born  so  recently  as  not  to  have  heard  and  understood 
Thackeray's  Lectures.  But  they  can  read  him,  and  I  beg 
of  them  to  try  and  appreciate  the  tenderer  phase  of  his 
genius,  as  well  as  the  sarcastic  one.  He  teaches  many 
lessons  to  young  men,  and  here  is  one  of  them,  which  I 
quote  mcmoriter  from  "  Barry  Lyndon  "  :  "  Do  you  not,  as 
a  boy,  remember  wraking  of  bright  summer  mornings  and 
finding  your  mother  looking  over  you  ?  had  not  the  gaze 


36  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

of  her  tender  eyes  stolen  into  your  senses  long  before  yon 
woke,  and  cast  over  your  slumbering  spirit  a  sweet  spell 
of  peace,  and  love,  and  fresh-springing  joy  ?  "  My  dear 
friend,  John  Brown,  of  Edinburgh  (whom  may  God  long 
preserve  to  both  countries  where  he  is  so  loved  and  hon- 
ored), chronicles  this  touching  incident.  "  We  cannot 
resist  here  recalling  one  Sunday  evening  in  December, 
when  Thackeray  was  walking  with  two  friends  along 
the  Dean  Eoad,  to  the  west  of  Edinburgh,  —  one  of  the 
noblest  outlets  to  any  city.  It  was  a  lovely  evening ; 
such  a  sunset  as  one  never  forgets  ;  a  rich  dark  bar  of 
cloud  hovered  over  the  sun,  going  down  behind  the  High- 
land hills,  lying  bathed  in  amethystine  bloom ;  between 
this  cloud  and  the  hills  there  was  a  narrow  slip  of  the 
pure  ether,  of  a  tender  cowslip  color,  lucid,  and  as  if  it 
were  the  very  body  of  heaven  in  its  clearness ;  every 
object  standing  out  as  if  etched  upon  the  sky.  The 
northwest  end  of  Corstorphine  Hill,  with  its  trees  and 
rocks,  lay  in  the  heart  of  this  pure  radiance  ;  and  there  a 
wooden  crane,  used  in  the  granary  below,  was  so  placed  as 
to  assume  the  figure  of  a  cross ;  there  it  was,  unmistakable, 
lifted  up  against  the  crystalline  sky.  All  three  gazed  at 
it  silently.  As  they  gazed,  Thackeray  gave  utterance  in  a 
tremulous,  gentle,  and  rapid  voice  to  what  all  were  feeling, 
in  the  word,  '  Calvary  ! '  The  friends  walked  on  in 
silence,  and  then  turned  to  other  things.  All  that  evening 
he  was  very  gentle  and  serious,  speaking,  as  he  seldom 
did,  of  divine  things,  —  of  death,  of  sin,  of  eternity,  of 
salvation,  expressing  his  simple  faith  in  God  and  in  his 
Saviour." 

Thackeray  was  found  dead  in  his  bed  on  Christmas 
morning,  and  he  probably  died  without  pain.  His  mother 
and  his  daughters  were  sleeping  under  the  same  roof  when 
he  passed  away  alone.  Dickens  told  me  that,  looking  on 
him  as  he  lay  in  his  coffin,  he  wondered  that  the  figure  he 


THACKERAY.  37 


had  known  in  life  as  one  of  such  noble  presence  could 
seem  so  shrunken  and  wasted ;  but  there  had  been  years 
of  sorrow,  years  of  labor,  years  of  pain,  in  that  now  ex- 
hausted life.  It.  was  his  happiest  Christmas  morning 
when  he  heard  the  Voice  calling  him  homeward  to  un- 
broken rest. 


HA  WTHORNE. 


A  hundred  years  ago  Henry  Vaughan  seems  almost  to  have  anticipated 
Hawthortie's  appearance  when  he  wrote  that  beautiful  line, 

"  Feed  on  the  vocal  silence  of  his  eye." 


C-<-' *-t- 


III. 

HAWTHOENE. 

I  AM  sitting  to-day  opposite  the  likeness  of  the  rarest 
genius  America  has  given  to  literature,  —  a  man  who 
lately  sojourned  in  this  busy  world  of  ours,  but  during 
many  years  of  his  life 

"  Wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud,"  — 

a  man  who  had,  so  to  speak,  a  physical  affinity  with  soli- 
tude. The  writings  of  this  author  have  never  soiled  the 
public  mind  with  one  unlovely  image.  His  men  and 
women  have  a  magic  of  their  own,  and  we  shall  wait  a 
long  time  before  another  arises  among  us  to  take  his 
place.  Indeed,  it  seems  probable  no  one  will  ever  walk 
precisely  the  same  round  of  fiction  which  he  traversed 
with  so  free  and  firm  a  step. 

The  portrait  I  am  looking  at  was  made  by  Bowse  (an 
exquisite  drawing),  and  is  a  very  truthful  representation 
of  the  head  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  He  was  several  times 
painted  and  photographed,  but  it  was  impossible  for  art  to 
give  the  light  and  beauty  of  his  wonderful  eyes.  I  remem- 
ber to  have  heard,  in  the  literary  circles  of  Great  Britain, 
that,  since  Burns,  no  author  had  appeared  there  with  a  finer 
face  than  Hawthorne's.  Old  Mrs.  Basil  Montagu  told 
me,  many  years  ago,  that  she  sat  next  to  Burns  at  dinner, 
when  he  appeared  in  society  in  the  first  flush  of  his  fame, 
after  the  Edinburgh  edition  of  his  poems  had  been  pub- 
lished.    She  said,  among  other  things,  that,  although  the 


42  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHOllS. 

company  consisted  of  some  of  the  best  bred  men  of  England, 
Burns  seemed  to  her  the  most  perfect  gentleman  among 
them.  She  noticed,  particularly,  his  genuine  grace  and  def- 
erential manner  toward  women,  and  I  was  interested  to  hear 
Mrs.  Montagu's  brilliant  daughter,  when  speaking  of  Haw- 
thorne's advent  in  English  society,  describe  him  in  almost 
the  same  terms  as  I  had  heard  her  mother,  years  before, 
describe  the  Scottish  poet.  I  happened  to  be  in  London 
with  Hawthorne  during  his  consular  residence  in  England, 
and  was  always  greatly  delighted  at  the  rustle  of  admi- 
ration his  personal  appearance  excited  when  he  entered  a 
room.  His  bearing  was  modestly  grand,  and  his  voice 
touched  the  ear  like  a  melody. 

Here  is  a  golden  curl  which  adorned  the  head  of 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne  when  he  lay  a  little  child  in  his 
■cradle.  It  was  given  to  me  many  years  ago  by  one  near 
.and  dear  to  him.  I  have  two  other  similar  "  blossoms," 
which  I  keep  pressed  in  the  same  book  of  remembrance. 
One  is  from  the  head  of  John  Keats,  and  was  given  to  me 
by  Charles  Cowden  Clarke,  and  the  other  graced  the  head 
of  Mary  Mitford,  and  was  sent  to  me  after  her  death  by 
her  friendly  physician,  who  watched  over  her  last  hours. 
Leigh  Hunt  says  with  a  fine  poetic  emphasis, 

"  There  seems  a  love  in  hair,  though  it  he  dead. 
It  is  the  gentlest,  yet  the  strongest  thread 
Of  our  frail  plant,  —  a  blossom  from  the  tree 
Surviving  the  proud  trunk  ;  —  as  though  it  said, 
Patience  and  Gentleness  is  Power.     In  me 
Behold  affectionate  eternity." 

There  is  a  charming  old  lady,  now  living  two  doors 
from  me,  who  dwelt  in  Salem  when  Hawthorne  was  born, 
and,  being  his  mother's  neighbor  at  that  time  (Mrs.  Haw- 
thorne then  lived  in  Union  Street),  there  came  a  message 
to  her  intimating  that  the  baby  could  be  seen  by  calling. 
So  my  friend  tells  me  she  went  in,  and  saw  the  little 


HA  WTHORNE.  43 


winking  thing  in  its  mother's  arms.  She  is  very  clear  as 
to  the  beauty  of  the  infant,  even  when  only  a  week  old, 
and  remembers  that  "  he  was  a  pleasant  child,  quite  hand- 
some, with  golden  curls."  She  also  tells  me  that  Haw- 
thorne's mother  was  a  beautiful  woman,  with  remarkable 
eyes,  full  of  sensibility  and  expression,  and  that  she  was 
a  person  of  singular  purity  of  mind.  Hawthorne's  father, 
whom  my  friend  knew  well,  she  describes  as  a  warm- 
hearted and  kindly  man,  very  fond  of  children.  He  was 
somewhat  inclined  to  melancholy,  and  of  a  reticent  dispo- 
sition. He  was  a  great  reader,  employing  all  his  leisure 
time  at  sea  over  books. 

Hawthorne's  father  died  when  Nathaniel  was  four  years 
old,  and  from  that  time  his  uncle  Eobert  Manning  took 
charge  of  his  education,  sending  him  to  the  best  schools  and 
afterwards  to  college.  When  the  lad  was  about  nine 
years  old,  while  playing  bat  and  ball  at  school,  he  lamed 
his  foot  so  badly  that  he  used  two  crutches  for  more  than 
a  year.  His  foot  ceased  to  grow  like  the  other,  and  the 
doctors  of  the  town  were  called  in  to  examine  the  little 
lame  boy.  He  was  not  perfectly  restored  till  he  was 
twelve  years  old.  His  kind-hearted  schoolmaster,  Joseph 
Worcester,  the  author  of  the  Dictionary,  came  every  day 
to  the  house  to  hear  the  boy's  lessons,  so  that  he  did  not 
fall  behind  in  his  studies.  [There  is  a  tradition  in  the 
Manning  family  that  Mr.  Worcester  was  very  much  inter- 
ested in  Maria  Manning  (a  sister  of  Mrs.  Hawthorne), 
who  died  in  1814,  and  that  this  was  one  reason  of  his 
attention  to  Nathaniel.]  The  boy  used  to  lie  flat  upon  the 
carpet,  and  read  and  study  the  long  days  through.  Some 
time  after  he  had  recovered  from  this  lameness  he  had  an 
illness  causing  him  to  lose  the  use  of  his  limbs,  and  he 
was  obliged  to  seek  again  the  aid  of  his  old  crutches, 
which  were  then  pieced  out  at  the  ends  to  make  them 
longer.     While  a  little  child,  and  as  soon  almost  as  he 


44  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

began  to  read,  the  authors  he  most  delighted  in  were 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  Pope,  and  Thomson.  The  "  Castle 
of  Indolence"  was  an  especial  favorite  with  him  during 
boyhood.  The  first  book  he  bought  with  his  own  money 
was  a  copy  of  Spenser's  "  Faery  Queen." 

One  who  watched  him  during  his  childhood  tells  me, 
that  "  when  he  was  six  years  old  his  favorite  book  was 
Bunyan's  '  Pilgrim's  Progress ' :  and  that  whenever  he 
went  to  visit  his  Grandmother  Hawthorne,  he  used  to 
take  the  old  family  copy  to  a  large  chair  in  a  corner  of 
the  room  near  a  window,  and  read  it  by  the  hour,  with- 
out once  speaking.  No  one  ever  thought  of  asking  how 
much  of  it  he  understood.  I  think  it  one  of  the  happiest 
circumstances  of  his  training,  that  nothing  was  ever 
explained  to  him,  and  that  there  was  no  professedly  in- 
tellectual person  in  the  family  to  usurp  the  place  of 
Providence  and  supplement  its  shortcomings,  in  order  to 
make  him  what  he  was  never  intended  to  be.  His  mind 
developed  itself ;  intentional  cultivation  might  have  spoiled 

it He  used  to  invent  long  stories,  wild  and  fanciful, 

and  tell  where  he  was  going  when  he  grew  up,  and  of  the 
wonderful  adventures  he  was  to  meet  with,  always  ending 
with,  '  And  I  'm  never  coming  back  again,'  in  quite  a 
solemn  tone,  that  enjoined  upon  us  the  advice  to  value 
him  the  more  while  he  stayed  with  us." 

When  he  could  scarcely  speak  plain,  it  is  recalled  by 
members  of  the  family  that  the  little  fellow  would  go 
about  the  house,  repeating  with  vehement  emphasis  and 
gestures  certain  stagy  lines  from  Shakespeare's  Richard 
III.,  which  he  had  overheard  from  older  persons  about  him. 
One  line,  in  particular,  made  a  great  impression  upon 
him,  and  he  would  start  up  on  the  most  unexpected 
occasions  and  fire  off  in  his  loudest  tone, 

"  Stand  back,  my  Lord,  and  let  the  coffin  pass." 

On  the  21st  of  August,  1820,  No.  1  of  "  The  Spectator, 


II A  WTHORNE.  45 


edited  by  1ST.  Hathorne,"  neatly  written  in  printed  letters 
by  the  editor's  own  hand,  appeared.  A  prospectus  was 
issued  the  week  before,  setting  forth  that  the  paper  Mould 
be  published  on  Wednesdays,  "  price  12  cents  per  annum, 
payment  to  be  made  at  the  end  of  the  year."  Among  the 
advertisements  is  the  following  :  — 

"  Nathaniel  Hathorne  proposes  to  publish  by  subscription  a  New 
Edition  of  the  Miseries  of  Authors,  to  which  will  be  added  a 
Sequel,  containing  Facts  and  Remarks  drawn  from  his  own  experi- 
ence." 

Six  numbers  only  were  published.  The  following  sub- 
jects were  discussed  by  young  "  Hathorne  "  in  the  Spec- 
tator,—"On  Solitude,"  "The  End  of  the  Year,"  "On 
Industry,"  "On  Benevolence,"  "On  Autumn,"  "On 
Wealth,"  "  On  Hope,"  "  On  Courage."  The  poetry  on  the 
last  page  of  each  number  was  evidently  written  by  the 
editor,  except  in  one  instance,  when  an  Address  to  the 
Sun  is  signed  by  one  of  his  sisters.  In  one  of  the  num- 
bers he  apologizes  that  no  deaths  of  any  importance  have 
taken  place  in  the  town.  Under  the  head  of  Births,  he 
gives  the  following  news,  "  The  lady  of  Dr.  Wiiithrop 
Brown,  a  son  and  heir.  Mrs.  Hathorne's  cat,  seven 
kittens.  We  hear  that  both  of  the  above  ladies  are  in 
a  state  of  convalescence."  One  of  the  literary  advertise- 
ments reads :  — 

"  Blank  Books  made  and  for  sale  by  N.  Hathorne." 

While  Hawthorne  was  yet  a  little  fellow  the  family 
moved  to  Baymond  in  the  State  of  Maine;  here  his 
out-of-door  life  did  him  great  service,  for  he  grew  tall 
and  strong,  and  became  a  good  shot  and  an  excellent  fish- 
erman. Here  also  his  imagination  was  first  stimulated, 
the  wild  scenery  and  the  primitive  manners  of  the  people 
contributing  greatly  to  awaken  his  thought.  At  seventeen 
he  entered  Bowdoin  College,  and  after  his  graduation  re- 
turned again  to  live  in  Salem.     During  his  youth  he  had 


46  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


an  impression  that  he  would  die  before  the  age  of  twenty- 
live  ;  but  the  Mannings,  his  ever-watchful  and  kind  rela- 
tions, did  everything  possible  for  the  care  of  his  health, 
and  he  was  tided  safely  over  the  period  when  he  was 
most  delicate.  Professor  Packard  told  me  that  when 
Hawthorne  was  a  student  at  Bowdoin  in  his  freshman 
year,  his  Latin  compositions  showed  such  facility  that 
they  attracted  the  special  attention  of  those  who  exam- 
ined them.  The  Professor  also  remembers  that  Haw- 
thorne's English  compositions  elicited  from  Professor 
Newman  (author  of  the  work  on  Ehetoric)  high  com- 
mendations. 

When  a  youth  Hawthorne  made  a  journey  into  New 
Hampshire  with  his  uncle,  Samuel  Manning.  They  trav- 
elled in  a  two-wheeled  chaise,  and  met  with  many  adven- 
tures which  the  young  man  chronicled  in  his  home  letters, 
Some  of  the  touches  in  these  epistles  were  very  charac- 
teristic and  amusing,  and  showed  in  those  early  years 
his  quick  observation  and  descriptive  power.  The  trav- 
ellers "  put  up  "  at  Parmington,  in  order  to  rest  over  Sun- 
day. Hawthorne  writes  to  a  member  of  the  family  in 
Salem:  "As  we  were  wearied  with  rapid  travelling,  we 
found  it  impossible  to  attend  divine  service,  which  was, 
of  course,  very  grievous  to  us  both.  In  the  evening,  how- 
ever, I  went  to  a  Bible  class,  with  a  very  polite  and 
agreeable  gentleman,  whom  I  afterwards  discovered  to  be 
a  strolling  tailor,  of  very  questionable  habits." 

When  the  travellers  arrived  in  the  Shaker  village  of 
Canterbury,  Hawthorne  at  once  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  Community  there,  and  the  account  which  he  sent 
home  was  to  the  effect  that  the  brothers  and  sisters  led  a 
good  and  comfortable  life,  and  he  wrote :  "  If  it  were  not 
for  the  ridiculous  ceremonies,  a  man  might  do  a  worse 
thing  than  to  join  them."  Indeed,  he  spoke  to  them  about 
becoming  a  member  of  the   Society,  and  was  evidently 


HA  WTHORNE.  47 


much  impressed  with  the  thrift  and  peace  of  the  estab- 
lishment. 

This  visit  in  early  life  to  the  Shakers  is  interesting  as 
suggesting  to  Hawthorne  his  beautiful  stoiy  of  "  The 
Canterbury  Pilgrims,"  which  is  in  his  volume  of  "The 
Snow-Image,  and  other  Twice-Told  Tales." 

A  lady  of  my  acquaintance  (the  identical "  Little  Annie  " 
of  the  "Bamble"  in  "Twice-Told  Tales")  recalls  the 
young  man  "  when  he  returned  home  after  his  collegiate 
studies."  "  He  was  even  then,"  she  says,  "  a  most  notice- 
able person,  never  going  into  society,  and  deeply  engaged 
in  reading  everything  he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  It  was 
said  in  those  days  that  he  had  read  every  book  in  the 
Athenaeum  Library  in  Salem."  This  lady  remembers  that 
when  she  was  a  child,  and  before  Hawthorne  had  printed 
any  of  his  stories,  she  used  to  sit  on  his  knee  and  lean 
her  head  on  his  shoulder,  while  by  the  hour  he  would  fas- 
cinate her  with  delightful  legends,  much  more  wonderful 
and  beautiful  than  any  she  has  ever  read  since  in  printed 
books. 

The  traits  of  the  Hawthorne  character  were  stern 
probity  and  truthfulness.  Hawthorne's  mother  had  many 
characteristics  in  common  with  her  distinguished  son,  she 
also  being  a  reserved  and  thoughtful  person.  Those  who 
knew  the  family  describe  the  son's  affection  for  her  as  of 
the  deepest  and  tenderest  nature,  and  they  remember  that 
when  she  died  his  grief  was  almost  insupportable.  The 
anguish  he  suffered  from  her  loss  is  distinctly  recalled  by 
many  persons  still  living,  who  visited  the  family  at  that 
time  in  Salem. 

I  first  saw  Hawthorne  when  he  was  about  thirty-five 
years  old.  He  had  then  published  a  collection  of  his 
sketches,  the  now  famous  "  Twice-Told  Tales."  Longfel- 
low, ever  alert  for  what  is  excellent^  and  eager  to  do  a 


48  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

brother  author  opportune  and  substantial  service,  at  once 
came  before  the  public  with  a  generous  estimate  of  the 
work  in  the  North  American  Eeview ;  but  the  choice  little 
volume,  the  most  promising  addition  to  American  litera- 
ture that  had  appeared  for  many  years,  made  little  impres- 
sion on  the  public  mind.  Discerning  readers,  however, 
recognized  the  supreme  beauty  in  this  new  writer,  and 
they  never  afterwards  lost  sight  of  him. 

In  1828  Hawthorne  published  a  short  anonymous 
romance  called  Fanshawe.  I  once  asked  him  about  this 
disowned  publication,  and  he  spoke  of  it  with  great  dis- 
gust, and  afterwards  he  thus  referred  to  the  subject  in  a 
letter  written  to  me  in  1851:  "You  make  an  inquiry 
about  some  supposed  former  publication  of  mine.  I  can- 
not be  sworn  to  make  correct  answers  as  to  all  the  lit- 
erary or  other  follies  of  my  nonage ;  and  I  earnestly 
recommend  you  not  to  brush  away  the  dust  that  may 
have  gathered  over  them.  Whatever  might  do  me  credit 
you  may  be  pretty  sure  I  should  be  ready  enough  to 
bring  forward.  Anything  else  it  is  our  mutual  interest 
to  conceal ;  and  so  far  from  assisting  your  researches  in 
that  direction,  I  especially  enjoin  it  on  you,  my  dear 
friend,  not  to  read  any  unacknowledged  page  that  you 
may  suppose  to  be  mine." 

When  Mr.  George  Bancroft,  then  Collector  of  the  Port 
of  Boston,  appointed  Hawthorne  weigher  and  gauger  in 
the  custom-house,  he  did  a  wise  thing,  for  no  public  officer 
ever  performed  his  disagreeable  duties  better  than  our 
romancer.  Here  is  a  tattered  little  official  document 
signed  by  Hawthorne  when  he  was  watching  over  the 
interests  of  the  country  :  it  certifies  his  attendance  at  the 
unlading  of  a  brig,  then  lying  at  Long  Wharf,  in  Boston.  I 
keep  this  precious  relic  side  by  side  with  one  of  a  similar 
custom-house  character,  signed  Robert  Burns. 

I  came  to  know  Hawthorne  very  intimately  after  the 


HA  WTHORXE.  49 


Whigs  displaced  the  Democratic  romancer  from  office.  In 
my  ardent  desire  to  have  him  retained  in  the  public  service, 
his  salary  at  that  time  being  his  sole  dependence,  —  not 
foreseeing  that  his  withdrawal  from  that  sort  of  employ- 
ment would  be  the  best  thing  for  American  letters  that 
could  possibly  happen,  —  I  called,  in  his  behalf,  on  several 
influential  politicians  of  the  day,  and  well  remember  the 
rebuffs  I  received  in  my  enthusiasm  for  the  author  of  the 
"  Twice-Told  Tales."  One  pompous  little  gentleman  in 
authority,  after  hearing  my  appeal,  quite  astounded  me 
by  his  ignorance  of  the  claims  of  a  literary  man  on  his 
country.  "  Yes,  yes,"  he  sarcastically  croaked  down  his 
public  turtle-fed  throat,  "I  see  through  it  all,  I  see  through 
it ;  this  Hawthorne  is  one  of  them  'ere  visionists,  and  we 
don't  want  no  such  a  man  as  him  round."  So  the  "  vis- 
ionist "  was  not  allowed  to  remain  in  office,  and  the  coun- 
try was  better  served  by  him  in  another  way.  In  the 
winter  of  1849,  after  he  had  been  ejected  from  the  custom- 
house, I  went  down  to  Salem  to  see  him  and  inquire  after 
his  health,  for  we  heard  he  had  been  suffering  from  illness. 
He  was  then  living  in  a  modest  wooden  house  in  Mall 
Street,  if  I  remember  rightly  the  location.  I  found  him 
alone  in  a  chamber  over  the  sitting-room  of  the  dwelling  ; 
and  as  the  day  was  cold,  he  was  hovering  near  a  stove. 
We  fell  into  talk  about  his  future  prospects,  and  he  was, 
as  I  feared  I  should  find  him,  in  a  very  desponding  mood. 
"  Now,"  said  I,  "  is  the  time  for  you  to  publish,  for  I  know 
during  these  years  in  Salem  you  must  have  got  something 
ready  for  the  press."  "  Nonsense,"  said  he  ;  "  what  heart 
had  I  to  write  anything,  when  my  publishers  (M.  and 
Company)  have  been  so  many  years  trying  to  sell  a  small 
edition  of  the  '  Twice-Tolcl  Tales  '  ?  "  I  still  pressed  upon 
him  the  good  chances  he  would  have  now  with  something 
new.  "  Who  would  risk  publishing  a  book  for  vie,  the  most 
unpopular  writer  in  America  ?  "    "I  would,"  said  I,  "  and 

3  D 


50  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

would  start  with  an  edition  of  two  thousand  copies  of 
anything  you  write."  "  What  madness  !  "  he  exclaimed  ; 
"your  friendship  for  me  gets  the  better  of  your  judgment. 
No,  no,"  he  continued ;  "  I  have  no  money  to  indemnify  a 
publisher's  losses  on  my  account."  I  looked  at  my  watch 
and  found  that  the  train  would  soon  be  starting  for  Boston, 
and  I  knew  there  was  not  much  time  to  lose  in  trying  to 
discover  what  had  been  his  literary  work  during  these  last 
few  years  in  Salem.  I  remember  that  I  pressed  him  to 
reveal  to  me  what  he  had  been  writing.  He  shook  his 
head  and  gave  me  to  understand  he  had  produced  nothing. 
At  that  moment  I  caught  sight  of  a  bureau  or  set  of 
drawers  near  where  we  were  sitting ;  and  immediately  it 
occurred  to  me  that  hidden  away  somewhere  in  that  article 
of  furniture  was  a  story  or  stories  by  the  author  of  the 
"Twice-Told  Tales,"  and  I  became  so  positive  of  it  that  I 
charged  him  vehemently  with  the  fact.  He  seemed  sur- 
prised, I  thought,  but  shook  his  head  again  ;  and  I  rose  to 
take  my  leave,  begging  him  not  to  come  into  the  cold  entry, 
saying  I  would  come  back  and  see  him  again  in  a  few 
days.  I  was  hurrying  down  the  stairs  when  he  called 
after  me  from  the  chamber,  asking  me  to  stop  a  moment. 
Then  quickly  stepping  into  the  entry  with  a  roll  of  manu- 
script in  his  hands,  he  said :  "  How  in  Heaven's  name  did 
you  know  this  thing  was  there  ?  As  you  have  found  me 
out,  take  what  I  have  written,  and  tell  me,  after  you  get 
home  and  have  time  to  read  it,  if  it  is  good  for  anything. 
It  is  either  very  good  or  very  bad,  —  I  don't  know  which." 
On  my  way  up  to  Boston  I  read  the  germ  of  "  The  Scarlet 
Letter  "  ;  before  I  slept  that  night  I  wrote  him  a  note  all 
aglow  with  admiration  of  the  marvellous  story  he  had  put 
into  my  hands,  and  told  him  that  I  would  come  again 
to  Salem  the  next  day  and  arrange  for  its  publication.  I 
went  on  in  such  an  amazing  state  of  excitement  when  we 
met  again  in  the  little  house,  that  he  would  not  believe  I 


HAWTHORNE.  51 


was  really  in  earnest.  lie  seemed  to  think  I  was  beside 
myself,  and  laughed  sadly  at  my  enthusiasm.  However, 
we  soon  arranged  for  his  appearance  again  before  the  pub- 
lic with  a  book. 

This  quarto  volume  before  me  contains  numerous  letters, 
written  by  him  from  1850  down  to  the  month  of  his  death. 
The  first  one  refers  to  "  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  and  is  dated 
in  January,  1850.  At  my  suggestion  he  had  altered  the 
plan  of  that  story.  It  was  his  intention  to  make  "  The 
Scarlet  Letter"  one  of  several  short  stories,  all  to  be  in- 
cluded in  one  volume,  and  to  be  called 

OLD-TIME    LEG-ENDS: 

TOGETHER  WITH   SKETCHES, 

EXPERIMENTAL  AND  IDEAL. 

His  first  design  was  to  make  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  "  occupy 
about  two  hundred  pages  in  his  new  book ;  but  I  per- 
suaded him,  after  reading  the  first  chapters  of  the  story, 
to  elaborate  it,  and  publish  it  as  a  separate  work.  After 
it  was  settled  that  "  The  Scarlet  Letter "  should  be  en- 
larged and  printed  by  itself  in  a  volume  he  wrote  to 
me:  — 

"  I  am  truly  glad  that  you  like  the  Introduction,  for  I  was  rather 
afraid  that  it  might  appear  absurd  and  impertinent  to  be  talking 
about  myself,  when  nobody,  that  I  know  of,  has  requested  any 
information  on  that  subject. 

"  As  regards  the  size  of  the  book,  I  have  been  thinking  a  good 
deal  about  it.  Considered  merely  as  a  matter  of  taste  and  beauty, 
the  form  of  publication  which  you  recommend  seems  to  me  much 
preferable  to  that  of  the  '  Mosses.' 

"  In  the  present  case,  however,  I  have  some  doubts  of  the  expedi- 
ency, because,  if  the  book  is  made  up  entirely  of  '  The  Scarlet 
Letter,'  it  will  be  too  sombre.  I  found  it  impossible  to  relieve  the 
shadows  of  the  story  with  so  much  light  as  I  would  gladly  have 
thrown  in.  Keeping  so  close  to  its  point  as  the  tale  does,  and 
diversified  no  otherwise  than  by  turning  different  sides  of  the  same 
dark  idea  to  the  reader'6  eye,  it  will  weary  very  many  people  and 


52  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

disgust  some.  Is  it  safe,  then,  to  stake  the  fate  of  the  book 
entirely  on  this  one  chance  ?  A  hunter  loads  his  gun  with  a  bullet 
and  several  buckshot ;  and,  following  his  sagacious  example,  it  was 
my  purpose  to  conjoin  the  one  long  story  with  half  a  dozen  shorter 
ones,  so  that,  failing  to  kill  the  public  outright  with  my  biggest  and 
heaviest  lump  of  lead,  I  might  have  other  chances  with  the  smaller 
bits,  individually  and  in  the  aggregate.  However,  I  am  willing  to 
leave  these  considerations  to  your  judgment,  and  should  not  be  sorry 
to  have  you  decide  for  the  separate  publication. 

"  In  this  latter  event  it  appears  to  me  that  the  only  proper  title 
for  the  book  would  be  '  The  Scarlet  Letter,'  for  '  The  Custom-House ' 
is  merely  introductory,  —  an  entrance-hall  to  the  magnificent  edifice 
which  I  throw  open  to  my  guests.  It  would  be  funny  if,  seeing  the 
further  passages  so  dark  and  dismal,  they  should  all  choose  to  stop 
there  !  If  '  The  Scarlet  Letter  '  is  to  be  the  title,  would  it  not  be 
well  to  print  it  on  the  title-page  in  red  ink  ?  I  am  not  quite  sure 
about  the  good  taste  of  so  doing,  but  it  would  certainly  be  piquant 
and  appropriate,  and,  I  think,  attractive  to  the  great  gull  whom  we 
are  endeavoring  to  circumvent." 

One  beautiful  summer  day,  twenty  years  ago,  I  found 
Hawthorne  in  his  little  red  cottage  at  Lenox,  surrounded 
by  his  happy  young  family.  He  had  the  look,  as  some- 
body said,  of  a  banished  lord,  and  his  grand  figure  among 
the  hills  of  Berkshire  seemed  finer  than  ever.  His  boy  and 
girl  were  swinging  on  the  gate  as  we  drove  up  to  his  door, 
and  with  their  sunny  curls  formed  an  attractive  feature  in 
the  landscape.  As  the  afternoon  was  cool  and  delightful, 
we  proposed  a  drive  over  to  Pittsfield  to  see  Holmes,  who 
was  then  living  on  his  ancestral  farm.  Hawthorne  was 
in  a  cheerful  condition,  and  seemed  to  enjoy  the  beauty 
of  the  day  to  the  utmost.  Next  morning  we  were  all  in- 
vited by  Mr.  Dudley  Field,  then  living  at  Stockbridge, 
to  ascend  Monument  Mountain.  Holmes,  Hawthorne, 
Duyckinck,  Herman  Melville,  Headley,  Sedgwick,  Mat- 
thews, and  several  ladies,  were  of  the  party.  We  scram- 
bled to  the  top  with  great  spirit,  and  when  we  arrived, 
Melville,  I  remember,  bestrode  a  peaked  rock,  which  ran 


HA  WTHORNE.  53 


out  like  a  bowsprit,  and  pulled  and  hauled  imaginary- 
ropes  for  our  delectation.  Then  we  all  assembled  in  a 
shady  spot,  and  one  of  the  party  read  to  us  Bryant's 
beautiful  poem  commemorating  Monument  Mountain. 
Then  we  lunched  among  the  rocks,  and  somebody  pro- 
posed Bryant's  health,  and  "long  life  to  the  dear  old 
poet."  This  was  the  most  popular  toast  of  the  day,  and 
it  took,  I  remember,  a  considerable  quantity  of  Heidsieck 
to  do  it  justice.  In  the  afternoon,  pioneered  by  Headley, 
we  made  our  way,  with  merry  shouts  and  laughter, 
through  the  Ice-Glen.  Hawthorne  was  among  the  most 
enterprising  of  the  merry-makers ;  and  being  in  the  dark 
much  of  the  time,  he  ventured  to  call  out  lustily  and 
pretend  that  certain  destruction  was  inevitable  to  all 
of  us.  After  this  extemporaneous  jollity,  we  dined  to- 
gether at  Mr.  Dudley  Field's  in  Stockbridge,  and  Haw- 
thorne rayed  out  in  a  sparkling  and  unwonted  manner. 
I  remember  the  conversation  at  table  chiefly  ran  on  the 
physical  differences  between  the  present  American  and 
English  men,  Hawthorne  stoutly  taking  part  in  favor  of 
the  American.  This  5th  of  August  was  a  happy  day 
throughout,  and  I  never  saw  Hawthorne  in  better  spirits. 
Often  and  often  I  have  seen  him  sitting  in  the  chair  I 
am  now  occupying  by  the  window,  looking  out  into  the 
twilight.  He  liked  to  watch  the  vessels  dropping  down 
the  stream,  and  nothing  pleased  him  more  than  to  go  on 
board  a  newly  arrived  bark  from  Down  East,  as  she  was 
just  moored  at  the  wharf.  One  night  we  made  the 
acquaintance  of  a  cabin-boy  on  board  a  brig,  whom  we 
found  off  duty  and  reading  a  large  subscription  volume, 
which  proved,  on  inquiry,  to  be  a  Commentary  on  the 
Bible.  When  Hawthorne  questioned  him  why  he  was 
reading,  then  and  there,  that  particular  book,  he  replied 
with  a  knowing  wink  at  both  of  us,  "  There  's  consider- 
'ble  her'sy  in  our  place,  and  I  'm  a  studying  up  for  'em." 


54  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


He  liked  on  Sunday  to  mouse  about  among  the  books, 
and  there  are  few  volumes  in  this  room  that  he  has  not 
handled  or  read.  He  knew  he  could  have  unmolested 
habitation  here,  whenever  he  chose  to  come,  and  he  was 
never  allowed  to  be  annoyed  by  intrusion  of  any  kind. 
He  always  slept  in  the  same  room,  —  the  one  looking  on 
the  water;  and  many  a  night  I  have  heard  his  solemn 
footsteps  over  my  head,  long  after  the  rest  of  the  house 
had  gone  to  sleep.  Like  many  other  nervous  men  of 
genius,  he  was  a  light  sleeper,  and  he  liked  to  be  up  and 
about  early ;  but  it  was  only  for  a  ramble  among  the 
books  again.  One  summer  morning  I  found  him  as  early 
as  four  o'clock  reading  a  favorite  poem,  on  Solitude,  a 
piece  he  very  much  admired.  That  morning  I  shall  not 
soon  forget,  for  he  was  in  the  vein  for  autobiographical 
talk,  and  he  gave  me  a  most  interesting  account  of  his 
father,  the  sea-captain,  who  died  of  the  yellow-fever  in 
Surinam  in  1808,  and  of  his  beautiful  mother,  who  dwelt 
a  secluded  mourner  ever  after  the  death  of  her  husband. 
Then  he  told  stories  of  his  college  life,  and  of  his  one 
sole  intimate,  Franklin  Pierce,  whom  he  loved  devotedly 
his  life  long. 

In  the  early  period  of  our  acquaintance  he  much  affected 
the  old  Boston  Exchange  Coffee-House  in  Devonshire 
Street,  and  once  I  remember  to  have  found  him  shut  up 
there  before  a  blazing  coal-fire,  in  the  "  tumultuous  pri- 
vacy "  of  a  great  snow-storm,  reading  with  apparent  in- 
terest an  obsolete  copy  of  the  "  Old  Farmer's  Almanac," 
which  he  had  picked  up  about  the  house.  He  also  de- 
lighted in  the  Old  Province  House,  at  that  time  an  inn, 
kept  by  one  Thomas  Waite,  whom  he  has  immortalized. 
After  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Saturday  Club  he 
came  frequently  to  dinner  with  Felton,  Longfellow, 
Holmes,  and  the  rest  of  his  friends,  who  assembled  once 
a  month  to  dine  together.     At  the  table,  on  these  occa- 


HAWTHORNE.  55 


sions,  lie  was  rather  reticent  than  conversational,  but 
when  he  chose  to  talk  it  was  observed  that  the  best 
things  said  that  day  came  from  him. 

As  I  turn  over  his  letters,  the  old  days,  delightful  to 
recall,  come  back  again  with  added  interest. 

"  I  sha'  n't  have  the  new  story,"  he  says  in  one  of  them,  dated  from 
Lenox  on  the  1st  of  October,  1850,  "  ready  by  November,  for  I  am 
never  good  for  anything  in  the  literary  way  till  after  the  first  autum- 
nal frost,  which  has  somewhat  such  an  effect  on  my  imagination 
that  it  does  on  the  foliage  here  about  me,  —  multiplying  and  bright- 
ening its  hues;  though  they  are  likely  to  be  sober  and  shabby 
enough  after  all. 

"  I  am  beginning  to  puzzle  myself  about  a  title  for  the  book. 
The  scene  of  it  is  in  one  of  those  old  projecting-storied  houses,  fa- 
miliar to  my  eye  in  Salem  ;  and  the  story,  horrible  to  say,  is  a  little 
less  than  two  hundred  years  long ;  though  all  but  thirty  or  forty 
pages  of  it  refer  to  the  present  time.  I  think  of  such  titles  as  '  The 
House  of  the  Seven  G-ables,'  there  being  that  number  of  gable-ends 
to  the  old  shanty  ;  or  '  The  Seven-Gabled  House ' ;  or  simply  '  The 
Seven  Gables.'  Tell  me  how  these  strike  you.  It  appears  to  me 
that  the  latter  is  rather  the  best,  and  has  the  great  advantage  that 
it  would  puzzle  the  Devil  to  tell  what  it  means." 

A  month  afterwards  he  writes  further  with  regard  to 
"  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  concerning  the  title  to 
which  he  was  still  in  a  quandary :  — 

"  '  The  Old  Pyncheon  House :  A  Romance ' ;  '  The  Old  Pyncheon 
Family  ;  or  the  House  of  the  Seven  Gables :  A  Romance ' ;  —  choose 
between  them.  I  have  rather  a  distaste  to  a  double  title  ?  other- 
wise. I  think  I  should  prefer  the  second.  Is  it  any  matter  under 
which  title  it  is  announced?  If  a  better  should  occur  hereafter,  we 
can  substitute.  Of  these  two,  on  the  whole,  I  judge  the  first  to 
be  the  better. 

"  I  write  diligently,  but  not  so  rapidly  as  I  had  hoped.  I  find  the 
book  requires  more  care  and  thought  than  '  The  Scarlet  Letter ' ; 
also  I  have  to  wait  oftener  for  a  mood.  '  The  Scarlet  Letter  '  being 
all  in  one  tone,  I  had  only  to  get  my  pitch,  and  could  then  go  on  inter- 
minably. Many  passages  of  this  book  ought  to  be  finished  with  the 
minuteness  of  a  Dutch  picture,  in  order  to  give  them  their  proper 
effect.     Sometimes,  when  tired  of  it,  it  strikes  me  that  the  whole  is 


56  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

an  absurdity,  from  beginning  to  end ;  but  the  fact  is,  in  writing  a  ro- 
mance, a  man  is  always,  or  always  ought  to  be,  careering  on  the  utmost 
verge  of  a  precipitous  absurdity,  and  the  skill  lies  in  coming  as  close 
as  possible,  without  actually  tumbling  over.  My  prevailing  idea  is, 
that  the  book  ought  to  succeed  better  than  '  The  Scarlet  Letter,' 
though  I  have  no  idea  that  it  will." 

On  the  9th  of  December  he  was  still  at  work  on  the 
new  romance,  and  writes  :  — 

"My  desire  and  prayer  is  to  get  through  with  the  business  in 
hand.  I  have  been  in  a  Slough  of  Despond  for  some  days  past, 
having  Avritten  so  fiercely  that  I  came  to  a  stand-still.  There  are 
points  where  a  writer  gets  bewildered  and  cannot  form  any  judg- 
ment of  what  he  has  done,  or  tell  what  to  do  next.  In  these  cases 
it  is  best  to  keep  quiet." 

On  the  12th  of  January,  1851,  he  is  still  busy  over  his 
new  book,  and  writes  :  "  My  '  House  of  the  Seven  Gables ' 
is,  so  to  speak,  finished ;  only  I  am  hammering  away 
a  little  on  the  roof,  and  doing  up  a  few  odd  jobs,  that 
were  left  incomplete.'  At  the  end  of  the  month  the 
manuscript  of  his  second  great  romance  was  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  expressman  at  Lenox,  by  Hawthorne  him- 
self, to  be  delivered  to  me.     On  the  27th  he  writes  :  — 

"  If  you  do  not  soon  receive  it,  you  may  conclude  that  it  has 
miscarried ;  in  which  case,  I  shall  not  consent  to  the  universe  exist- 
ing a  moment  longer.  I  have  no  copy  of  it,  except  the  wildest 
scribble  of  a  first  draught,  so  that  it  could  never  be  restored. 

"  It  has  met  with  extraordinary  success  from,  that  portion  of  the 
public  to  whose  judgment  it  has  been  submitted,  viz.  from  my  wife. 
I  likewise  prefer  it  to  '  The  Scarlet  Letter ' ;  but  an  author's  opinion 
of  his  book  just  after  completing  it  is  worth  little  or  nothing,  he 
being  then  in  the  hot  or  cold  fit  of  a  fever,  and  certain  to  rate  it  too 
high  or  too  low. 

"  It  has  undoubtedly  one  disadvantage  in  being  brought  so  close 
to  the  present  time;  whereby  its  .romantic  improbabilities  become 
more  glaring. 

"  I  deem  it  indispensable  that  the  proof-sheets  should  be  sent  me 
for  correction.  It  will  cause  some  delay,  no  doubt,  but  probably 
not  much  more  than  if  I  lived  in  Salem.  At  all  events,  I  don't  see 
how  it  can  be  helped.    My  autography  is  son?etitnes  villanously  blind ; 


HAWTHORNE.  57 

and  it  is  odd  enough  that  whenever  the  printers  do  mistake  a  word, 
it  is  just  the  very  jewel  of  a  word,  worth  all  the  rest  of  the  dic- 
tionary." 

I  well  remember  with  what  anxiety  I  awaited  the  ar- 
rival of  the  expressman  with  the  precious  parcel,  and 
with  what  keen  delight  I  read  every  word  of  the  new 
story  before  I  slept.  Here  is  the  original  manuscript, 
just  as  it  came  that  day,  twenty  years  ago,  fresh  from  the 
author's  hand.  The  printers  carefully  preserved  it  for 
me  ;  and  Hawthorne  once  made  a  formal  presentation  of 
it,  with  great  mock  solemnity,  in  this  very  room  where 
I  am  now  sitting. 

After  the  book  came  out  he  wrote :  — 

"I  have  by  no  means  an  inconvenient  multitude  of  friends;  but 
if  they  ever  do  appear  a  little  too  numerous,  it  is  when  I  am  mak- 
ing a  list  of  those  to  whom  presentation  copies  are  to  be  sent. 
Please  send  one  to  General  Pierce,  Horatio  Bridge,  R.  W.  Emerson, 
W.  E.  Channing,  Longfellow,  Hillard,  Sumner,  Holmes,  Lowell,  and 
Thompson  the  artist.  You  will  yourself  give  one  to  Whipple, 
whereby  I  shall  make  a  saving.  I  presume  you  won't  put,  the  por- 
trait into  the  book.  It  appears  to  me  an  improper  accompaniment  to 
a  new  work.  Nevertheless,  if  it  be  ready,  I  should  !><■  glad  to  ha'.e 
each  of  these  presentation  copies  accompanied  by  a  copy  of  the  en- 
graving put  loosely  between  the  leaves.  Good  by.  I  must  now 
trudge  two  miles  to  the  village,  through  rain  and  mud  knee-deep, 
after  that  accursed  proof-sheet.  The  book  reads  very  well  in  proofs, 
but  I  don't  believe  it  will  take  like  the  former  one.  The  pre- 
liminary chapter  was  what  gave  '  The  Scarlet  Letter  '  its  vogue." 

The  engraving  he  refers  to  in  this  letter  was  made 
from  a  portrait  by  Mr.  C.  G.  Thompson,  and  at  that  time, 
1851,  was  an  admirable  likeness.  On  the  6th  of  March 
he  writes  :  — 

"  The  package,  with  my  five  heads,  arrived  yesterday  afternoon, 
and  we  are  truly  obliged  to  you  for  putting  so  many  at  our  disposal. 
They  are  admirably  done.  The  children  recognized  their  venerable 
sire  with  great  delight.  My  wife  complains  somewhat  of  a  want  of 
cheerfulness  in  the  face ;  and,  to  say  the  truth,  it  does  appear  to  be 
afflicted  with  a  bedevilled  melancholy ;  but  it  will  do  all  the  better 
3* 


58  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


for  the  author  of  '  The  Scarlet  Letter.'  In  the  expression  there  is  a 
singular  resemblance  (which  I  do  not  remember  in  Thompson's  pic- 
ture) to  a  miniature  of  my  father." 

His  letters  to  me,  during  the  summer  of  1851,  were 
frequent  and  sometimes  quite  long.  "  The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables  "  was  warmly  welcomed,  both  at  home  and 
abroad.     On  the  23d  of  May  he  writes :  — 

"  Whipple's  notices  have  done  more  than  pleased  me,  for  they 
have  helped  me  to  see  my  book.  Much  of  the  censure  I  recognize 
as  just;  I  wish  I  could  feel  the  praise  to  be  so  fully  deserved. 
Being  better  (which  I  insist  it  is)  than  '  The  Scarlet  Letter,'  I  have 
never  expected  it  to  be  so  popular  (this  steel  pen  makes  me  write 
awfully). Esq.,  of  Boston,  has  written  to  me,  complain- 
ing that  I  have  made  his  grandfather  infamous !  It  seems  there  was 
actually  a  Pyncheon  (or  Pynchon,  as  he  spells  it)  family  resident  in 
Salem,  and  that  their  representative,  at  the  period  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, was  a  certain  Judge  Pynchon,  a  Tory  and  a  refugee.     This  was 

Mr. 's  grandfather,  and  (at  least,  so  he  dutifully  describes  him) 

the  most  exemplary  old  gentleman  in  the  world.  There  are  several 
touches  in  my  account  of  the  Pyncheons  which,  he  says,  make  it 
probable  that  I  had  this  actual  family  in  my  eye,  and  he  considers 
himself  infinitely  wronged  and  aggrieved,  and  thinks  it  monstrous 
that  the  '  virtuous  dead  '  cannot  be  suffered  to  rest  quietly  in  their 
graves.     He  further  complains  that  I  speak  disrespectfully  of  the 

's  in  Grandfather's  Chair.     He  writes  more  in  sorrow  than  in 

anger,  though  there  is  quite  enough  of  the  latter  quality  to  give 
piquancy  to  his  epistle.  The  joke  of  the  matter  is,  that  I  never 
heard  of  his  grandfather,  nor  knew  that  any  Pyncheons  had  ever 
hved  in  Salem,  but  took  the  name  because  it  suited  the  tone  of 
may  book,  and  was  as  much  my  property,  for  fictitious  purposes,  as 
that  of  Smith.  I  have  pacified  him  by  a  very  polite  and  gentle- 
manly letter,  and  if  ever  you  publish  any  more  of  the  Seven  Gables, 
I  should  like  to  write  a  brief  preface,  expressive  of  my  anguish  for 
this  unintentional  wrong,  and  making  the  best  reparation  possible  • 
else  these  wretched  old  Pyncheons  will  have  no  peace  in  the  other 

world,  nor  in  this.     Furthermore,  there  is  a  Rev.  Mr. ,  resident 

within  four  miles  of  me,  and  a  cousin  of  Mr. ,  who  states  that  he 

likewise  is  highly  indignant.  Who  would  have  dreamed  of  claim- 
ants starting  up  for  such  an  inheritance  as  the  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables ! 


HAWTHORNE.  59 


"  I  mean  to  write,  within  six  weeks  or  two  months  next  ensuing, 
a  book  of  stories  made  up  of  classical  myths.  The  subjects  are  : 
The  Story  of  Midas,  with  his  Golden  Touch,  Pandora's  Box,  The 
Adventure  of  Hercules  in  quest  of  the  Golden  Apples,  Bellerophon 
and  the  Chimera,  Baucis  and  Philemon,  Perseus  and  Medusa  ;  these, 
I  think,  will  be  enough  to  make  up  a  volume.  As  a  framework,  I 
shall  have  a  young  college  student  telling  these  stories  to  his  cousins 
and  brothers  and  sisters,  during  his  vacations,  sometimes  at  the  lire- 
side,  sometimes  in  the  woods  and  dells.  Unless  I  greatly  mistake, 
these  old  fictions  will  work  up  admirably  for  the  purpose ;  and  I 
shall  aim  at  substituting  a  tone  in  some  degree  Gothic  or  romantic, 
or  any  such  tone  as  may  best  please  myself,  instead  of  the  classic 
coldness,  which  is  as  repellant  as  the  touch  of  marble. 

"  I  give  you  these  hints  of  my  plan,  because  you  will  perhaps 
think  it  advisable  to  employ  Billings  to  prepare  some  illustrations. 
There  is  a  good  scope  in  the  above  subjects  for  fanciful  designs. 
Bellerophon  and  the  Chimera,  for  instance  :  the  Chimera  a  fantastic 
monster  with  three  heads,  and  Bellerophon  fighting  him,  mounted 
on  Pegasus;  Pandora  opening  the  box  ;  Hercules  talking  with  Atlas. 
an  enormous  giant  who  holds  the  sky  on  his  shoulders,  or  sailing  across 
the  sea  in  an  immense  bowl;  Perseus  transforming  a  king  and  all 
his  subjects  to  stone,  by  exhibiting  the  Gorgon's  head.  No  particu- 
lar accuracy  in  costume  need  be  aimed  at.  My  stories  will  bear  out 
the  artist  in  any  liberties  he  may  be  inclined  to  take.  Billings 
would  do  these  things  well  enough,  though  his  characteristics  are 
grace  and  delicacy  rather  than  wildness  of  fancy.  The  book,  if  it 
comes  out  of  my  mind  as  I  see  it  now,  ought  to  have  pretty  wide 
success  amongst  young  people  ;  and,  of  course,  I  shall  purge  out  all  the 
old  heathen  wickedness,  and  put  in  a  moral  wherever  practicable. 
For  a  title  how  would  this  do  :  '  A  Wonder-Book  for  Girls  and 
Boys  ' ;  or.  '  The  Wonder-Book  of  Old  Stories  '  ?  I  prefer  the 
former.    Or  '  Myths  Modernized  for  my  Children  ' ;  that  won't  do. 

"  I  need  a  little  change  of  scene,  and  meant  to  have  come  to  Boston 
and  elsewhere  before  writing  this  book ;  but  I  cannot  leave  home 
at  present." 

Throughout  the  summer  Hawthorne  was  constantly 
worried  by  people  who  insisted  that  they,  or  their 
families  in  the  present  or  past  generations,  had  been 
deeply  wronged  in  "  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables." 
In  a  note,  received  from  him  on  the  5th  of  June,  he 
says  :  — 


6o  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


"  I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  still  another  claimant  of  the 
Pyncheon  estate.  I  wonder  if  ever,  and  how  soon,  I  shall  get  a 
just  estimate  of  how  many  jackasses  there  are  in  th's  ridiculous 
world.  My  correspondent,  by  the  way,  estimates  the  number  of  these 
Pyncheon  jackasses  at  about  twenty  ;  I  am  doubtless  to  h**  remon- 
strated with  by  each  individual.  After  exchanging  shots  wifh  all  of 
them,  I  shall  get  you  to  publish  the  whole  correspondence,"  in  a  style 
to  match  that  of  my  other  works,  and  I  anticipate  a  great  run  Tor  the 
volume. 

"  P.  S.  My  last  correspondent  demands  that  another  name  b« 
substituted,  instead  of  that  of  the  family  ;  to  which  I  assent,  in  case 
the  publishers  can  be  prevailed  on  to  cancel  the  stereotype  plates- 
Of  course  you  will  consent!     Pray  do  !  " 

Praise  now  poured  in  upon  him  from  all  quarters. 
Hosts  of  critics,  both  in  England  and  America,  gallantly 
came  forward  to  do  him  service,  and  his  fame  was  as- 
sured. On  the  15th  of  July  he  sends  me  a  jubilant  letter 
from  Lenox,  from  which  I  will  copy  several  passages  :  — 

"  Mrs.  Kemble  writes  very  good  accounts  from  London  of  ths 
reception  my  two  romances  have  met  with  there.  She  says  they 
have  made  a  greater  sensation  than  any  book  since  '  Jane  Eyre  ' ; 
but  probably  she  is  a  little  or  a  good  deal  too  emphatic  in  her  repre- 
sentation of  the  matter.  At  any  rate,  she  advises  that  the  sheets  of 
any  future  book  be  sent  to  Moxon,  and  such  an  arrangement  made 
that  a  copyright  may  be  secured  in  England  as  well  as  here.  Could 
this  be  done  with  the  Wonder-Book  ?  And  do  you  think  it  would 
be  worth  while?  I  must  see  the  proof-sheets  of  this  book.  It  is  a 
cursed  bore  ;  for  I  want  to  be  done  with  it  from  this  moment.  Can't 
you  arrange  it  so  that  two  or  three  or  more  sheets  may  be  sent  at 
once,  on  stated  days,  and  so  my  journeys  to  the  village  be  fewer  ? 

"  That  review  which  you  sent  me  is  a  remarkable  production. 
There  is  praise  enough  to  satisfy  a  greedier  author  than  myself.  I 
set  it  aside,  as  not  being  able  to  estimate  how  far  it  is  deserved. 
I  can  better  judge  of  the  censure,  much  of  which  is  undoubtedly 
just ;  and  I  shall  profit  by  it  if  I  can.  But,  after  all,  there  would  be 
no  great  use  in  attempting  it.  There  are  weeds  enough  in  my  mind, 
to  be  sure,  and  I  might  pluck  them  up  by  the  handful ;  but  in  so 
doing  I  should  root  up  the  few  flowers  along  with  them.  It  is  also 
4o  be  considered,  that  what  one  man  calls  weeds  another  classifies 
among  the  choicest  flowers  in  the  garden.     But  this  reviewer  is 


HAWTHORNE.  6i 


certainly  a  man  of  sense,  and  sometimes  tickles  me  under  the  fifth 
rib.  I  beg  you  to  observe,  however,  that  I  do  not  acknowledge  his 
justice  in  cutting  and  slashing  among  the  characters  of  the  two 
books  at  the  rate  he  does ;  sparing  nobody,  I  think,  except  Pearl 
and  Phcebe.  Yet  I  think  he  is  right  as  to  my  tendency  as  respects 
individual  character. 

"  I  am  going  to  begin  to  enjoy  the  summer  now,  and  to  read  fool- 
ish novels,  if  I  can  get  any,  and  smoke  cigars,  and  think  of  nothing 
at  all;  which  is  equivalent  to  thinking  of  all  manner  of  things." 

The  composition  of  the  "  Tangiewood  Tales  "  gave  him 
pleasant  employment,  and  all  his  letters,  during  the  period 
he  was  writing  them,  overflow  with  evidences  of  his  fe- 
licitous mood.  He  requests  that  Billings  should  pay  espe- 
cial attention  to  the  drawings,  and  is  anxious  that  the 
porch  of  Tangiewood  should  be  "well  supplied  with 
shrubbery."  He  seemed  greatly  pleased  that  Mary  Eus- 
sell  Mitford  had  fallen  in  with  his  books  and  had  written 
to  me  about  them.  "  Her  sketches,"  he  said,  "long  ago  as 
I  read  them,  are  as  sweet  in  my  memory  as  the  scent  of 
new  hay."     On  the  18th  of  August  he  writes  :  — 

"  You  are  going  to  publish  another  thousand  of  the  Seven  Gables. 
I  promised  those  Pyncheons  a  preface.  What  if  you  insert  the 
following  ? 

"  (The  author  is  pained  to  learn  that,  in  selecting  a  name  for  the 
fictitious  inhabitants  of  a  castle  in  the  air,  he  has  wounded  the 
feelings  of  more  than  one  respectable  descendant  of  an  old  Pynchcon 
family.  He  begs  leave  to  say  that  he  intended  no  reference  to  any 
individual  of  the  name,  now  or  heretofore  extant ;  and  further,  that, 
at  the  time  of  writing  his  book,  he  was  wholly  unaware  of  the 
existence  of  such  a  family  in  New  England  for  two  hundred  years 
back,  and  that  whatever  he  may  have  since  learned  of  them  is 
altogether  to  their  credit.) 

"  Insert  it  or  not,  as  you  like.     I  have  done  with  the  matter." 

I  advised  him  to  let  the  Pyncheons  rest  as  they  were, 
and  omit  any  addition,  either  as  note  or  preface,  to  the 
romance. 

Near  the  close  of  1851  his  health  seemed  unsettled 
and  he  asked  me  to  look  over  certain  proofs  "  carefully," 


62  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

for  he  did  not  feel  well  enough  to  manage  them  himself 
In  one  of  his  notes,  written  from  Lenox  at  that  time, 
he  says  :  — 

"  Please  God,  I  mean  to  look  you  in  the  face  towards  the  end  of 
next  week ;  at  all  events,  within  ten  days.  I  have  stayed  here  too 
long  and  too  constantly.  To  tell  you  a  secret,  I  am  sick  to  death  of 
Berkshire,  and  hate  to  think  of  spending  another  winter  here.  But 
I  must.  The  air  and  climate  do  not  agree  with  my  health  at  all ;  and, 
for  the  first  time  since  I  was  a  boy,  I  have  felt  languid  and  dispirited 
during  almost  my  whole  residence  here.  0  that  Providence  would 
build  me  the  merest  little  shanty,  and  mark  me  out  a  rood  or  two 
of  garden-ground,  near  the  sea-coast.  I  thank  you  for  the  two  vol- 
umes of  De  Quincey.  If  it  were  not  for  your  kindness  in  supplying 
me  with  books  now  and  then,  I  should  quite  forget  how  to  read." 

Hawthorne  was  a  hearty  devourer  of  books,  and  in 
certain  moods  of  mind  it  made  very  little  difference  what 
the  volume  before  him  happened  to  be.  An  old  play 
or  an  old  newspaper  sometimes  gave  him  wondrous 
great  content,  and  he  would  ponder  the  sleepy,  uninter- 
esting sentences  as  if  they  contained  immortal  mental 
aliment.  He  once  told  me  he  found  such  delight  in  old 
advertisements  in  the  newspaper  files  at  the  Boston 
Athenaeum,  that  he  had  passed  delicious  hours  among 
them.  At  other  times  he  was  very  fastidious,  and  threw 
aside  book  after  book  until  he  found  the  right  one.  De 
Quincey  was  a  special  favorite  with  him,  and  the  Ser- 
mons of  Laurence  Sterne  he  once  commended  to  me  as 
the  best  sermons  ever  written.  In  his  library  was  an  early- 
copy  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  "  Arcadia,"  which  had  floated 
down  to  him  from  a  remote  ancestry,  and  which  he  had 
read  so  industriously  for  forty  years  that  it  was  nearly 
worn  out  of  its  thick  leathern  cover.  Hearing  him  say 
once  that  the  old  English  State  Trials  were  enchanting 
reading,  and  knowing  that  he  did  not  possess  a  copy  of 
those  heavy  folios,  I  picked  up  a  set  one  day  in  a  book- 
shop and  sent   them   to   him.     He  often  told  me  thai 


HA  WTHORNE.  63 


he  spent  more  hours  over  them  and  got  more  delectation 
out  of  them  than  tongue  could  tell,  and  he  said,  if  five 
lives  were  vouchsafed  to  him,  he  could  employ  them  all  in 
writing  stories  out  of  those  books.  He  had  sketched,  in 
his  mind,  several  romances  founded  on  the  remarkable 
trials  reported  in  the  ancient  volumes ;  and  one  day,  I 
remember,  he  made  my  blood  tingle  by  relating  some  of 
the  situations  he  intended,  if  his  life  was  spared,  to  weave 
into  future  romances.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  novels  he  con- 
tinued almost  to  worship,  and  was  accustomed  to  read 
them  aloud  in  his  family.  The  novels  of  G.  P.  E.  James, 
both  the  early  and  the  later  ones,  lie  insisted  were  admi- 
rable stories,  admirably  told,  and  he  had  high  praise  to 
bestow  on  the  works  of  Anthony  Trollope.  "  Have  you 
ever  read  these  novels  ? "  he  wrote  to  me  in  a  letter  from 
England,  some  time  before  Trollope  began  to  be  much 
known  in  America.  "  They  precisely  suit  my  taste ; 
solid  and  substantial,  written  on  the  strength  of  beef  and 
through  the  inspiration  of  ale,  and  just  as  real  as  if  some 
giant  had  hewn  a  great  lump  out  of  the  earth  and  put  it 
under  a  glass  case,  with  all  its  inhabitants  going  about 
their  daily  business  and  not  suspecting  that  they  were 
made  a  show  of.  And  these  books  are  as  English  as  a 
beefsteak.  Have  they  ever  been  tried  in  America  \  It 
needs  an  English  residence  to  make  them  thoroughly 
comprehensible ;  but  still  I  should  think  that  the  human 
nature  in  them  would  give  them  success  anywhere." 

I  have  often  been  asked  if  all  his  moods  were  som- 
bre, and  if  he  was  never  jolly  sometimes  like  other  peo- 
ple. Indeed  he  was  ;  and  although  the  humorous  side 
of  Hawthorne  was  not  easily  or  often  discoverable,  yet 
have  I  seen  him  marvellously  moved  to  fun,  and  no  man 
laughed  more  heartily  in  his  way  over  a  good  story.  "Wise 
and  witty  H ,  in  whom  wisdom  and  wit  are  so  in- 
grained that  age  only  increases  his  subtile  spirit,  and  greatly 


64  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

enhances  the  power  of  his  cheerful  temperament,  always 
had  the  talismanic  faculty  of  breaking  up  that  thought- 
fully sad  face  into  mirthful  waves ;  and  I  remember  how 
Hawthorne  writhed  with  hilarious  delight  over  Professor 

L 's  account  of  a  butcher  who  remarked  tnat  "  Idees 

had  got  afloat  in  the  public  mind  with  respect  to  sassin- 
gers."  I  once  told  him  of  a  young  woman  who  brought 
in  a  manuscript,  and  said,  as  she  placed  it  in  my  hands, 
"  I  don't  know  what  to  do  with  myself  sometimes,  I  'm  so 
filled  with  mammoth  thoughts."  A  series  of  convulsive 
efforts  to  suppress  explosive  laughter  followed,  which  I 
remember  to  this  day. 

He  had  an  inexhaustible  store  of  amusing  anecdotes  to 
relate  of  people  and  things  he  had  observed  on  the  road. 
One  day  he  described  to  me,  in  his  inimitable  and  quietly 
ludicrous  manner,  being  watched,  while  on  a  visit  to  a 
distant  city,  by  a  friend  who  called,  and  thought  he  needed 
a  protector,  his  health  being  at  that  time  not  so  good  as 
usual.  "  He  stuck  by  me,"  said  Hawthorne,  "  as  if  he 
were  afraid  to  leave  me  alone ;  he  stayed  past  the  dinner 
hour,  and  when  I  began  to  wonder  if  he  never  took  meals 
himself,  he  departed  and  set  another  man  to  watch  me 
till  he  should  return.  That  man  vmtched  me  so,  in  his 
unwearying  kindness,  that  when  I  left  the  house  I  forgot 
half  my  luggage,  and  left  behind,  among  other  things,  a 
beautiful  pair  of  slippers.  They  watched  me  so,  among 
them,  I  swear  to  you  I  forgot  nearly  everything  I  owned." 


Hawthorne  is  still  looking  at  me  in  his  far-seeing  way, 
as  if  he  were  pondering  what  was  next  to  be  said  about 
him.  It  would  not  displease  him,  I  know,  if  I  were  to 
begin  my  discursive  talk  to-day  by  telling  a  little  incident 
connected  with  a  famous  American  poem. 

Hawthorne  dined  one  day  with  Longfellow,  and  brought 


HA  WTH011NE.  65 


with  him  a  friend  from  Salem.  Alter  dinner  the  friend 
said  :  "  I  have  been  trying  to  persuade  Hawthorne  to 
write  a  story,  based  upon  a  legend  of  Acadie,  and  still 
current  there  ;  a  legend  of  a  girl  who,  in  the  dispersion  of 
the  Acadians,  was  separated  from  her  lover,  and  passed 
her  life  in  waiting  and  seeking  for  him,  and  only  found 
him  dying  in  a  hospital,  when  both  were  old."  Longfellow 
wondered  that  this  legend  did  not  strike  the  fancy  of 
Hawthorne,  and  said  to  him :  "  If  you  have  really  made 
up  your  mind  not  to  use  it  for  a  story,  will  you  give  it 
to  me  for  a  poem  ? "  To  this  Hawthorne  assented,  and 
moreover  promised  not  to  treat  the  subject  in  prose  till 
Longfellow  had  seen  what  he  could  do  with  it  in  verse. 
And  so  we  have  "  Evangeline  "  in  beautiful  hexameters, 
—  a  poem  that  will  hold  its  place  in  literature  while 
true  affection  lasts.  Hawthorne  rejoiced  in  this  great  suc- 
cess of  Longfellow,  and  loved  to  count  up  the  editions, 
both  foreign  and  American,  of  this  now  world-renowned 
poem. 

I  have  lately  met  an  early  friend  of  Hawthorne's,  older 
than  himself,  who  knew  him  intimately  all  his  life  long, 
and  I  have  learned  some  additional  facts  about  his  youth- 
ful days.  Soon  after  he  left  college  he  wrote  some  stories 
which  he  called  "  Seven  Tales  of  my  Native  Land."  The 
motto  which  he  chose  for  the  title-page  was  "  We  are 
Seven,"  from  Wordsworth.  My  informant  read  the  tales 
in  manuscript,  and  says  some  of  them  were  very  striking, 
particularly  one  or  two  Witch  Stories.  As  soon  as  the 
little  book  was  well  prepared  for  the  press  he  deliberately 
threw  it  into  the  fire,  and  sat  by  to  see  its  destruction. 

When  about  fourteen  he  wrote  out  for  a  member  of  his 
family  a  list  of  the  books  he  had  at  that  time  been 
reading.  The  catalogue  was  a  long  one,  but  my  informant 
remembers  that  The  Waverley  Novels,  Rousseau's  Works, 
and  The  Newgate  Calender  were  among  them.     Serious 


66  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

remonstrances  were  made  by  the  family  touching  the 
perusal  of  this  last  work,  but  he  persisted  in  going  through 
it  to  the  end.  He  had  an  objection  in  his  boyhood 
to  reading  much  that  was  called  "  true  and  useful."  Of 
history  in  general  he  was  not  very  fond,  but  he  read  Frois- 
sart  with  interest,  and  Clarendon's  History  of  the  Eebel- 
lion.  He  is  remembered  to  have  said  at  that  time  "  he  cared 
very  little  for  the  history  of  the  world  before  the  four- 
teenth century."  After  he  left  college  he  read  a  great  deal  of 
French  literature,  especially  the  works  of  Voltaire  and  his 
contemporaries.  He  rarely  went  into  the  streets  during 
the  daytime,  unless  there  was  to  be  a  gathering  of  the 
people  for  some  public  purpose,  such  as  a  political  meeting, 
a  military  muster,  or  a  fire.  A  great  conflagration  attracted 
him  in  a  peculiar  manner,  and  he  is  remembered,  while  a 
young  man  in  Salem,  to  have  been  often  seen  looking  on, 
from  some  dark  corner,  while  the  fire  was  raging.  When 
General  Jackson,  of  whom  he  professed  himself  a  partisan, 
visited  Salem  in  1833,  he  walked  out  to  the  boundary  of 
the  town  to  meet  him,  —  not  to  speak  to  him,  but  only  to 
look  at  him.  When  he  came  home  at  night  he  said  he 
found  only  a  few  men  and  boys  collected,  not  enough 
people,  without  the  assistance  he  rendered,  to  welcome  the 
General  with  a  good  cheer  It  is  said  that  Susan,  in  the 
"Village  Uncle,"  one  of  the  "  Twice-Told  Tales,"  is  not 
altogether  a  creation  of  his  fancy.  Her  father  was  a 
fisherman  living  in  Salem,  and  Hawthorne  wTas  constantly 
telling  the  members  of  his  family  how  charming  she  was, 
and  lie  always  spoke  of  her  as  his  "  mermaid."  He  said 
she  had  a  great  deal  of  what  the  French  call  espieghrie. 
There  was  another  young  beauty,  living  at  that  time  in 
his  native  town,  quite  captivating  to  him,  though  in  a 
different  style  from  the  mermaid.  But  if  his  head  and 
heart  were  turned  in  his  youth  by  these  two  nymphs  in 
his  native  town,  there  was  soon  a  transfer  of  his  affections 


HA  WTHORNE.  67 


to  quite  another  direction.  His  new  passion  was  a  much 
more  permanent  one,  for  now  there  dawned  upon  him  so 
perfect  a  creature  that  he  fell  in  love  irrevocably ;  all  his 
thoughts  and  all  his  delights  centred  in  her,  who  suddenly 
became  indeed  the  mistress  of  his  soul.  She  filled  the 
measure  of  his  being,  and  became  a  part  and  parcel  of 
his  life.  Who  was  this  mysterious  young  person  that 
had  crossed  his  boyhood's  path  and  made  him  hers 
forever  ?  Whose  daughter  was  she  that  could  thus 
enthrall  the  ardent  young  man  in  Salem,  who  knew  as 
yet  so  little  of  the  world  and  its  sirens  ?  She  is 
described  by  one  who  met  her  long  before  Hawthorne 
made  her  acquaintance  as  "  the  prettiest  low-born  lass 
that  ever  ran  on  the  greensward,"  and  she  must  have 
been  a  radiant  child  of  beauty,  indeed,  that  girl !  She 
danced  like  a  fairy,  she  sang  exquisitely,  so  that  every 
one  who  knew  her  seemed  amazed  at  her  perfect  way  of 
doing  everything  she  attempted.  Who  was  it  that  thus 
summoned  all  this  witchery,  making  such  a  tumult  in 
young  Hawthorne's  bosom  ?  She  was  "  daughter  to 
Leontes  and  Hermione,"  king  and  queen  of  Sicilia,  and 
her  name  was  Perdita !  It  was  Shakespeare  who  intro- 
duced Hawthorne  to  his  first  real  love,  and  the  lover 
never  forgot  his  mistress.  He  was  constant  ever,  and 
worshipped  her  through  life.  Beauty  always  captivated 
him.  Where  there  was  beauty  he  fancied  other  good 
gifts  must  naturally  be  in  possession.  During  his  child- 
hood homeliness  was  always  repulsive  to  him.  When  a 
little  boy  he  is  remembered  to  have  said  to  a  woman  who 
wished  to  be  kind  to  him,  "  Take  her  away  !  She  is  ugly 
and  fat,  and  has  a  loud  voice." 

When  quite  a  young  man  he  applied  for  a  situation 
under  Commodore  Wilkes  on  the  Exploring  Expedition, 
but  did  not  succeed  in  obtaining  an  appointment.  He 
thought  this  a  great  misfortune,  as  he  was  fond  of  travel, 


68  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  he  promised  to  do  all  sorts  of  wonderful  things, 
should  he  be  allowed  to  join  the  voyagers. 

One  very  odd  but  characteristic  notion  of  his,  when  a 
youth,  was,  that  he  should  like  a  competent  income  which 
should  neither  increase  nor  diminish,  for  then,  he  said,  it 
would  not  engross  too  much  of  his  attention.  Surrey's 
little  poem,  "  The  Means  to  obtain  a  Happy  Life,"  ex- 
pressed exactly  what  his  idea  of  happiness  was  when  a 
lad.  When  a  school-boy  he  wrote  verses  for  the  news- 
papers, but  he  ignored  their  existence  in  after  years  with 
a  smile  of  droll  disgust.  One  of  his  quatrains  lives  in 
the  memory  of  a  friend,  who  repeated  it  to  me  recently :  — 

' '  The  ocean  hath  its  silent  caves, 
Deep,  quiet,  and  alone  ; 
Above  them  there  are  troubled  waves, 
Beneath  them  there  are  none." 

When  the  Atlantic  Cable  was  first  laid,  somebody,  not 
knowing  the  author  of  the  lines,  quoted  them  to  Haw- 
thorne as  applicable  to  the  calmness  said  to  exist  in  the 
depths  of  the  ocean.  He  listened  to  the  verse,  and  then 
laughingly  observed,  "  I  know  something  of  the  deep  sea 
myself." 

In  1836  he  went  to  Boston,  I  am  told,  to  edit  the 
"  American  Magazine  of  Useful  Knowledge,"  for  which 
he  was  to  be  paid  a  salary  of  six  hundred  dollars  a  year. 
The  proprietors  soon  became  insolvent,  so  that  he  received 
nothing,  but  he  kept  on  just  the  same  as  if  he  had  been 
paid  regularly.  The  plan  of  the  work  proposed  by  the 
publishers  of  the  magazine  admitted  no  fiction  into  its 
pages.  The  magazine  was  printed  on  coarse  paper  and  was 
illustrated  by  engravings  painful  to  look  at.  There  were 
no  contributors  except  the  editor,  and  he  wrote  the  whole 
of  every  number.  Short  biographical  sketches  of  emi- 
nent men  and  historical  narratives  filled  up  its  pages.  1 
have  examined  the  columns  of  this  deceased  magazine,  and 


HA  WTHORNE.  69 


read  Hawthorne's  narrative  of  Mrs.  Dustan's  captivity. 
Mrs.  Dustan  was  carried  off  by  the  Indians  from  Haver- 
hill, and  Hawthorne  does  not  much  commiserate  the  hard- 
ships she  endured,  but  reserves  his  sympathy  for  her  hus- 
band, who  was  not  carried  into  captivity,  and  suffered 
nothing  from  the  Indians,  but  who,  he  says,  was  a  tender- 
hearted man,  and  took  care  of  the  children  during  Mrs. 
D.'s  absence  from  home,  and  probably  knew  that  his  wife 
would  be  more  than  a  match  for  a  wdiole  tribe  of  savages. 

When  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cheever  was  knocked  down  and 
flogged  in  the  streets  of  Salem  and  then  imprisoned, 
Hawthorne  came  out  of  his  retreat  and  visited  him  regu- 
larly in  jail,  showing  strong  sympathy  for  the  man  and 
great  indignation  for  those  who  had  maltreated  him. 

Those  early  days  in  Salem,  —  how  interesting  the 
memory  of  them  must  be  to  the  friends  who  knew  and 
followed  the  gentle  dreamer  in  his  budding  career ! 
When  the  whisper  first  came  to  the  timid  boy,  in  that 
"  dismal  chamber  in  Union  Street,"  that  he  too  possessed 
the  soul  of  an  artist,  there  were*  not  many  about  him  to 
share  the  divine  rapture  that  must  have  filled  his  proud 
young  heart.  Outside  of  his  own  little  family  circle, 
doubting  and  desponding  eyes  looked  upon  him,  and 
many  a  stupid  head  wagged  in  derision  as  he  passed  by. 
But  there  was  always  waiting  for  him  a  sweet  and  honest 
welcome  by  the  pleasant  hearth  where  his  mother  and 
sisters  sat  and  listened  to  the  beautiful  creations  of  Ins 
fresh  and  glowing  fancy.  We  can  imagine  the  happy 
group  gathered  around  the  evening  lamp !  "  Well,  my 
son,"  says  the  fond  mother,  looking  up  from  her  knitting- 
work,  "  what  have  you  got  for  us  to-night  ?  It  is  some 
time  since  you  read  us  a  story,  and  your  sisters  are  aa 
impatient  as  I  am  to  have  a  new  one."  And  then  we 
can  hear,  or  think  we  hear,  the  young  man  begin  in  a  low 
and  modest  tone  the  story  of  "  Edward  Fane's  Rosebud," 


70  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

or  "  Tlie  Seven  Vagabonds,"  or  perchance  (0  tearful, 
happy  evening  !)  that  tender  idyl  of  "  The  Gentle  Boy  ! " 
What  a  privilege  to  hear  for  the  first  time  a  "  Twice-Told 
Tale,"  before  it  was  even  once  told  to  the  public  !  And  I 
know  with  what  rapture  the  delighted  little  audience 
must  have  hailed  the  advent  of  every  fresh  indication 
that  genius,  so  seldom  a  visitant  at  any  fireside,  had  come 
down  so  noiselessly  to  bless  their  quiet  hearthstone  in  the 
sombre  old  town.  In  striking  contrast  to  Hawthorne's 
audience  nightly  convened  to  listen  while  he  read  his 
charming  tales  and  essays,  I  think  of  poor  Bernardin  de 
Saint-Pierre,  facing  those  hard-eyed  critics  at  the  house  of 
Madame  Neckar,  when  as  a  young  man  and  entirely 
unknown  he  essayed  to  read  his  then  unpublished  story  of 
"  Paul  and  Virginia."  The  story  was  simple  and  the 
voice  of  the  poor  and  nameless  reader  trembled.  Every- 
body was  unsympathetic  and  gaped,  and  at  the  end  of  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  Monsieur  de  Buffon,  who  always  had 
a  loud  way  with  him,  cried  out  to  Madame  Neckar's 
servant,  "  Let  the  horses  be  put  to  my  carriage  ! " 

Hawthorne  seems  never  to  have  known  that  raw 
period  in  authorship  which  is  common  to  most  growing 
writers,  when  the  style  is  "  overlanguaged,"  and  when  it 
plunges  wildly  through  the  "  sandy  deserts  of  rhetoric," 
or  struggles  as  if  it  were  having  a  personal  difficulty  with 
Ignorance  and  his  brother  Platitude.  It  was  capitally 
said  of  Chateaubriand  that  "  he  lived  on  the  summits  of 
syllables,"  and  of  another  young  author  that  he  was  so 
dully  good,  that  he  made  even  virtue  disreputable." 
Hawthorne  had  no  such  literary  vices  to  contend  with. 
His  looks  seemed  from  the  start  to  be 

"Commercing  with  the  skies," 

and  he  marching  upward  to  the  goal  without  impediment. 
I  was  struck  a  few  days  ago  with  the  untruth,  so  far  as 


HAWTHORNE.  71 


Hawthorne  is  concerned,  of  a  passage  in  the  Preface  to 
Endymion.  Keats  says :  "  The  imagination  of  a  boy  is 
healthy,  and  the  mature  imagination  of  a  man  is  healthy ; 
but  there  is  a  space  of  life  between,  in  which  the  soul  is 
in  a  ferment,  the  character  undecided,  the  way  of  life 
uncertain,  the  ambition  thick-sighted."  Hawthorne's  im- 
agination had  no  middle  period  of  decadence  or  doubt, 
but  continued,  as  it  began,  in  full  vigor  to  the  end. 


In  1852  I  went  to  Europe,  and  while  absent  had  fre- 
quent most  welcome  letters  from  the  delightful  dreamer. 
He  had  finished  the  "  Blithedale  Romance "  during  my 
wanderings,  and  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  arrange  for  its 
publication  in  London  simultaneously  with  its  appearance 
in  Boston.  One  of  his  letters  (dated  from  his  new  resi- 
dence in  Concord,  June  17,  1852)  runs  thus:  — 

"You  have  succeeded  admirably  in  regard  to  the  'Blithedale  Ro- 
mance,' and  have  got  £  150  more  than  I  expected  to  receive.  It 
will  come  in  good  time,  too;  for  my  drafts  have  been  pretty  heavy 
of  late,  in  consequence  of  buying  an  estate!!!  and  fitting  up  my 
house.  What  a  truant  you  are  from  the  Corner !  I  wish,  before  leav- 
ing London,  you  would  obtain  forme  copies  of  any  English  editions  of 
my  writings  not  already  in  my  possession.  I  have  Routledge's  edi- 
tion of  '  The  Scarlet  Letter,'  the  '  Mosses,'  and  '  Twice-Told  Tales ' ; 
Bonn's  editions  of  '  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,'  the  '  Snow- 
Image  '  and  the  '  Wonder-Book,'  and  Bogue's  edition  of  '  The  Scar- 
let Letter ' ;  —  these  are  all,  and  I  should  be  glad  of  the  rest.  I 
meant  to  have  written  another  '  Wonder-Book '  this  summer,  but 
another  task  has  unexpectedly  intervened.  General  Pierce  of  New 
Hampshire,  the  Democratic  nominee  for  the  Presidency,  was  a  col- 
lege friend  of  mine,  as  you  know,  and  we  have  been  intimate 
through  life.  He  wishes  me  to  write  his  biography,  and  I  have  con- 
sented to  do  so ;  somewhat  reluctantly,  however,  for  Pierce  has  now 
reached  that  altitude  when  a  man,  careful  of  his  personal  dignity, 
will  begin  to  think  of  cutting  his  acquaintance.  But  I  seek  nothing 
from  him,  and  therefore  need  not  be  ashamed  to  tell  the  truth  of  an 
old  friend I  have  written  to  Barry  Cornwall,  and  shall  prob' 


72  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

ably  enclose  the  letter  along  with  this.  I  don't  more  than  half  be- 
lieve what  you  tell  me  of  my  reputation  in  England,  and  am  only  so 
far  credulous  on  the  strength  of  the  £  200,  and  shall  have  a  somewhat 
stronger  sense  of  this  latter  reality  when  I  finger  the  cash.  Do  come 
home  in  season  to  preside  over  the  publication  of  the  Romance." 

He  had  christened  his  estate  The  Wayside,  and  in  a 
postscript  to  the  above  letter  he  begs  me  to  consider  the 
name  and  tell  him  how  I  like  it. 

Another  letter,  evidently  foreshadowing  a  foreign  ap- 
pointment from  the  newly  elected  President,  contains  this 
passage  :  — 

"Do  make  some  inquiries  about  Portugal;  as,  for  instance,  in 
what  part  of  the  world  it  lies,  and  whether  it  is  an  empire,  a  king- 
dom, or  a  republic.  Also,  and  more  particularly,  the  expenses  of 
living  there,  and  whether  the  Minister  would  be  likely  to  be  much 
pestered  with  his  own  countrymen.  Also,  any  other  information 
about  foreign  countries  would  be  acceptable  to  an  inquiring  mind." 

When  I  returned  from  abroad  I  found  him  getting 
matters  in  readiness  to  leave  the  country  for  a  consul- 
ship in  Liverpool.  He  seemed  happy  at  the  thought  of 
flitting,  but  I  wondered  if  he  could  possibly  be  as  con- 
tented across  the  water  as  he  was  in  Concord.  I  re- 
member walking  with  him  to  the  Old  Manse,  a  mile  or 
so  distant  from  The  Wayside,  his  new  residence,  and 
talking  over  England  and  his  proposed  absence  of  several 
years.  Wp  strolled  round  the  house,  where  he  spent  the 
first  years  of  his  married  life,  and  he  pointed  from  the 
outside  to  the  windows,  out  of  which  he  had  looked  and 
seen  supernatural  and  other  visions.  We  walked  up  and 
down  the  avenue,  the  memory  of  which  he  has  embalmed 
in  the  "  Mosses,"  and  he  discoursed  most  pleasantly  of  all 
that  had  befallen  him  since  he  led  a  lonely,  secluded  life 
in  Salem.  It  was  a  sleepy,  warm  afternoon,  and  he 
proposed  that  we  should  wander  up  the  banks  of  the 
river  and  lie  down  and  watch  the  clouds  float  above  and 
in  the  quiet  stream.     I  recall  his  lounging,  easy  air  as  he 


HA  WTIWRNE.  73 


tolled  me  along  until  we  came  to  a  spot  secluded,  and 
ofttimes  sacred  to  his  wayward  thoughts.  He  bade  me 
lie  down  on  the  grass  and  hear  the  birds  sing.  As  we 
steeped  ourselves  in  the  delicious  idleness,  he  began  to 
murmur  some  half-forgotten  lines  from  Thomson's  "  Sea- 
sons," which  he  said  had  been  favorites  of  his  from 
boyhood.  While  we  lay  there,  hidden  in  the  grass,  we 
heard  approaching  footsteps,  and  Hawthorne  hurriedly 
whispered,  "  Duck  !  or  we  shall  be  interrupted  by  some- 
body." The  solemnity  of  his  manner,  and  the  thought  of 
the  down-flat  position  in  which  we  had  both  placed  our- 
selves to  avoid  being  seen,  threw  me  into  a  foolish,  semi- 
hysterical  fit  of  laughter,  and  when  he  nudged  me,  and 
again  whispered  more  lugubriously  than  ever,  "  Heaven 

help  me,  Mr.  is  close  upon  us  ! "  I  felt  convinced 

that  if  the  thing  went  further,  suffocation,  in  my  case  at 
least,  must  ensue. 

He  kept  me  constantly  informed,  after  he  went  to 
Liverpool,  of  how  he  was  passing  his  time ;  and  his 
charming  "  English  Note-Books  "  reveal  the  fact  that  he 
was  never  idle.  There  were  touches,  however,  in  his 
private  letters  which  escaped  daily  record  in  his  journal, 
and  I  remember  how  delightful  it  was,  after  he  landed  in 
Europe,  to  get  his  frequent  missives.  In  one  of  the  first 
he  gives  me  an  account  of  a  dinner  where  he  was  obliged 
to  make  a  speech.     He  says :  — 


"  I  tickled  up  John  Bull's  self-conceit  (which  is  very  easily  done) 
with  a  few  sentences  of  most  outrageous  flattery,  and  sat  down 
oi  a  general  puddle  of  good  feeling."  In  another  he  says:  "  I  have 
*aken  a  house  in  Rock  Park,  on  the  Cheshire  side  of  the  Mersey,  and 
•<m  as  snug  as  a  bug  in  a  rug.  Next  year  you  must  come  and  see  how 
I  live.  Give  my  regards  to  everybody,  and  my  love  to  half  a  dozen. 
....  I  wish  you  would  call  on  Mr.  Savage,  the  antiquarian,  if  you 
know  him,  and  ask  whether  he  can  inform  me  what  part  of  Eng- 
land the  original  William  Hawthorne  came  from.     He  came  over,  I 

thiak,  in  1634 It  would  really  be  a  great  obligation  if  he  could 

4 


74  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


answer  the  above  query.  Or,  if  the  fact  is  not  within  his  own 
knowledge,  he  might  perhaps  indicate  some  place  where  such  infor- 
mation might  be  obtained  here  in  England.  I  presume  there  are 
records  still  extant  somewhere  of  all  the  passengers  by  those  early 
ships,  with  their  English  localities  annexed  to  their  names.  Of  al] 
things,  I  should  like  to  find  a  gravestone  in  one  of  these  old 
churchyards  with  my  own  name  upon  it,  although,  for  myself,  I 
should  wish  to  be  buried  in  America.  The  graves  are  too  horribly 
damp  here." 

The  hedgerows  of  England,  the  grassy  meadows,  and 
the  picturesque  old  cottages  delighted  him,  and  he  was 
never  tired  of  writing  to  me  about  them.  While  wan- 
dering over  the  country,  he  was  often  deeply  touched  by 
meeting  among  the  wild-flowers  many  of  his  old  New 
England  favorites,  —  bluebells,  crocuses,  primroses,  fox- 
glove, and  other  flowers  which  are  cultivated  in  our 
gardens,  and  which  had  long  been  familiar  to  him  in 
America. 

I  can  imagine  him,  in  his  quiet,  musing  way,  strolling 
through  the  daisied  fields  on  a  Sunday  morning  and 
hearing  the  distant  church-bells  chiming  to  service.  His 
religion  was  deep  and  broad,  but  it  was  irksome  for  him 
to  be  fastened  in  by  a  pew-door,  and  I  doubt  if  he  often 
heard  an  English  sermon.  He  very  rarely  described 
himself  as  inside  a  church,  but  he  liked  to  wander  among 
the  graves  in  the  churchyards  and  read  the  epitaphs  on 
the  moss-grown  slabs.  He  liked  better  to  meet  and  have 
a  talk  with  the  sexton  than  with  the  rector. 

He  was  constantly  demanding  longer  letters  from  home  ; 
and  nothing  gave  him  more  pleasure  than  monthly  news 
from  "  The  Saturday  Club,"  and  detailed  accounts  of  what 
was  going  forward  in  literature.  One  of  his  letters  dated 
in  January,  1854,  starts  off  thus :  — 

"  I  wish  your  epistolary  propensities  were  stronger  than  they  are. 
All  your  letters  to  me  since  I  left  America  might  be  squeezed  into 
one.  ....  I  send  Ticknor  a  big  cheese,  which  I  long  ago  promised 


HA  WTHORNE.  75 

him,  and  my  advice  is,  that  he  keep  it  in  the  shop,  and  daily,  be- 
tween eleven  and  one  o'clock,  distribute  slices  of  it  to  your  half- 
starved  authors,  together  with  crackers  and  something  to  drink 

I  thank  you  for  the  books  you  send  me,  and  more  especially  for  Mrs. 
Mowatt's  Autobiography,  which  seems  to  me  an  admirable  book. 
Of  all  things  I  delight  in  autobiographies  ;  and  I  hardly  ever  read  one 
that  interested  me  so  much.  She  must  be  a  remarkable  woman,  and 
I  cannot  but  lament  my  ill  fortune  in  never  having  seen  her  on  the 

stage  or  elsewhere I  count  strongly  upon  your  promise  to  be 

with  us  in  May.     Can't  you  bring  Whipple  with  you  ?  " 

One  of  his  favorite  resorts  in  Liverpool  was  the  board- 
ing-house of  good  Mrs.  Blodgett,  in  Duke  Street,  a  house 
where  many  Americans  have  found  delectable  quarters, 
after  being  tossed  on  the  stormy  Atlantic.  "  I  have  never 
known  a  better  woman,"  Hawthorne  used  to  say,  "  and 
her  motherly  kindness  to  me  and  mine  I  can  never 
forget."  Hundreds  of  American  travellers  will  bear 
witness  to  the  excellence  of  that  beautiful  old  lady, 
who  presided  with  such  dignity  and  sweetness  over  her 
hospitable  mansion. 

On  the  13th  of  April,  1854,  Hawthorne  wrote  to  me 
this  characteristic  letter  from  the  consular  office  in  Liver- 
pool :  — 

"  I  am  very  glad  that  the  '  Mosses '  have  come  into  the  hands  of  our 
firm  ;  and  I  return  the  copy  sent  me,  after  a  careful  revision.  When 
I  wrote  those  dreamy  sketches,  I  little  thought  that  I  should  ever 
preface  an  edition  for  the  press  amidst  the  bustling  life  of  a  Liver- 
pool consulate.  Upon  my  honor,  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I  entirely 
comprehend  my  own  meaning,  in  some  of  these  blasted  allegories ; 
but  I  remember  that  I  always  had  a  meaning,  or  at  least  thought  I  had. 
I  am  a  good  deal  changed  since  those  times ;  and,  to  tell  you  the 
truth,  my  past  self  is  not  very  much  to  my  taste,  as  I  see  myself  in 
this  book.  Yet  certainly  there  is  more  in  it  than  the  public  gen- 
erally gave  me  credit  for  at  the  time  it  was  written. 

"  But  I  don't  think  myself  wortny  of  very  much  more  credit 
than  I  got.  It  has  been  a  very  disagreeable  task  to  read  the  book. 
The  story  of  '  Rappacini's  Daughter '  was  published  in  the  Demo- 
cratic Review,  about  the  year  1844,    and  it  was  prefaced  by  some 


76  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

remarks  on  the  celebrated  French  author  (a  certain  M.  de  l'Aube- 
pine),  from  whose  works  it  was  translated.  I  left  out  this  preface 
when  the  story  was  republished  ;  but  I  wish  you  would  turn  to  it 
in  the  Democratic,  and  see  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  insert  it  in 
the  new  edition.     I  leave  it  altogether  to  your  judgment. 

"  A  young  poet  named has  called  on  me,  and  has  sent  me  some 

copies  of  his  works  to  be  transmitted  to  America.  It  seems  to  me 
there  is  good  in  him  ;  and  he  is  recognized  by  Tennyson,  by  Car- 
lyle,  by  Kingsley,  and  others  of  the  best  people  here.  He  writes  me 
that  this  edition  of  his  poems  is  nearly  exhausted,  and  that  Rout- 
ledge  is  going  to  publish  another  enlarged  and  in  better  style. 

"  Perhaps  it  might  be  well  for  you  to  take  him  up  in  America. 
At  all  events,  try  to  bring  him  into  notice  ;  and  some  day  or  other 
you  may  be  glad  to  have  helped  a  famous  poet  in  his  obscurity. 
The  poor  fellow  has  left  a  good  post  in  the  customs  to  cultivate 
literature  in  London ! 

"  We  shall  begin  to  look  for  you  now  by  every  steamer  from 
Boston.  You  must  make  up  your  mind  to  spend  a  good  while  with 
us  before  going  to  see  your  London  friends. 

"  Did  you  read  the  article  on  your  friend  De  Quincey  in  the  last 

Westminster  ?    It  was  written  by  Mr. of  this  city,  who  was  in 

America  a  year  or  two  ago.  The  article  is  pretty  well,  but  does 
nothing  like  adequate  justice  to  De  Quincey ;  and  in  fact  no  Eng- 
lishman cares  a  pin  for  him.  We  are  ten  times  as  good  readers  and 
critics  as  they. 

"  Is  not  Whipple  coming  here  soon?  " 

Hawthorne's  first  visit  to  London  afforded  him  great 
pleasure,  but  he  kept  out  of  the  way  of  literary  people  as 
much   as   possible.     He   introduced   himself  to  nobody, 

except   Mr.  ,  whose  assistance  he  needed,  in  order 

to  be  identified  at  the  bank.  He  wrote  to  me  from  24 
George  Street,  Hanover  Square,  and  told  me  he  delighted 
in  London,  and  wished  he  could  spend  a  year  there.  He 
enjoyed  floating  about,  in  a  sort  of  unknown  way,  among 
the  rotund  and  rubicund  figures  made  jolly  with  ale  and 
port-wine.  He  was  greatly  amused  at  being  told  (his 
informants  meaning  to  be  complimentary)  "  that  he  would 
never  be  taken  for  anything  but  an  Englishman."  He 
called  Tennyson's  "  Charge  of  the  Light   Brigade,"  just 


HA  WTHORNE.  77 

printed  at  that  time,  "  a  broken-kneed  gallop  of  a  poem." 
He  writes :  — 

"  John  Bull  is  in  high  spirits  just  now  at  the  taking  of  Sebas- 
topol.  What  an  absurd  personage  John  is!  I  find  that  my  liking 
for  him  grows  stronger  the  more  I  see  of  him,  but  that  my  admira- 
tion and  respect  have  constantly  decreased." 

One  of  his  most  intimate  friends  (a  man  unlike  that 
:jidividual  of  whom  it  was  said  that  he  was  the  friend  of 
everybody  that  did  not  need  a  friend)  was  Francis  Ben- 
noch,  a  merchant  of  Wood  Street,  Cheapside,  London,  the 
gentleman  to  whom  Mrs.  Hawthorne  dedicated  the  Eng- 
lish Note-Books.  Hawthorne's  letters  abounded  in  warm 
expressions  of  affection  for  the  man  whose  noble  hospi- 
tality and  deep  interest  made  his  residence  in  England 
full  of  happiness.  Bennoch  was  indeed  like  a  brother  to 
him,  sympathizing  warmly  in  all  his  literary  projects,  and 
giving  him  the  benefit  of  his  excellent  judgment  while  he 
was  sojourning  among  strangers.  Bennoch's  record  may 
be  found  in  Tom  Taylor's  admirable  life  of  poor  Haydon, 
the  artist.  All  literary  and  artistic  people  who  have  had 
the  good  fortune  to  enjoy  his  friendship  have  loved  him. 
I  happen  to  know  of  his  bountiful  kindness  to  Miss 
Mitford  and  Hawthorne  and  poor  old  Jerdan,  for  these 
hospitalities  happened  in  my  time ;  but  he  began  to 
befriend  all  who  needed  friendship  long  before  I  knew 
him.  His  name  ought  never  to  be  omitted  from  the 
literary  annals  of  England  ;  nor  that  of  his  wife  either, 
for  she  has  always  made  her  delightful  fireside  warm  and 
comforting  to  her  husband's  friends. 

Many  and  many  a  happy  time  Bennoch,  Hawthorne, 
and  myself  have  had  together  on  British  soil.  I  re- 
member we  went  once  to  dine  at  a  great  house  in  the 
country,  years  ago,  where  it  was  understood  there  would 
be  no  dinner  speeches.  The  banquet  was  in  honor  of 
some  society,  —  I  have  quite  forgotten  what,  —  but  it 


78  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

was  a  jocose  and  not  a  serious  club.     The  gentleman  who 

gave  it,  Sir ,  was  a  most  kind  and  genial  person,  and 

gathered  about  him  on  this  occasion  some  of  the  brightest 
and  best  from  London.  All  the  way  down  in  the  train 
Hawthorne  was  rejoicing  that  this  was  to  be  a  dinner 
without  speech-making ;  "  for,"  said  he,  "  nothing  would 
tempt  me  to  go  if  toasts  and  such  confounded  deviltry 
were  to  be  the  order  of  the  day."  So  we  rattled  along, 
without  a  fear  of  any  impending  cloud  of  oratory.  The 
entertainment  was  a  most  exquisite  one,  about  twenty 
gentlemen  sitting  down  at  the  beautifully  ornamented 
table.  Hawthorne  was  in  uncommonly  good  spirits,  and, 
having  the  seat  of  honor  at  the  right  of  his  host,  was 
pretty  keenly  scrutinized  by  his  British  brethren  of  the 
quill.  He  had,  of  course,  banished  all  thought  of  speech- 
making,  and  his  knees  never  smote  together  once,  as  he 
told  me  afterwards.  But  it  became  evident  to  my  mind 
that  Hawthorne's  health  was  to  be  proposed  with  all  the 
honors.  I  glanced  at  him  across  the  table,  and  saw  that 
he  was  unsuspicious  of  any  movement  against  his  quiet 
serenity.  Suddenly  and  without  warning  our  host  rapped 
the  mahogany,  and  began  a  set  speech  of  welcome  to  the 
"  distinguished  American  romancer."  It  was  a  very  honest 
and  a  very  hearty  speech,  but  I  dared  not  look  at  Haw- 
thorne. I  expected  every  moment  to  see  him  glide  out  of 
the  room,  or  sink  down  out  of  sight  from  his  chair.  The 
tortures  I  suffered  on  Hawthorne's  account,  on  that  occa- 
sion, I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  now.  I  knew  nothing 
would  have  induced  the  shy  man  of  letters  to  go  down  to 
Brighton,  if  he  had  known  he  was  to  be  spoken  at  in  that 
manner.  I  imagined  his  face  a  deep  crimson,  and  his 
hands  trembling  with  nervous  horror;  but  judge  of  my 
surprise,  when  he  rose  to  reply  with  so  calm  a  voice  and 
so  composed  a  manner,  that,  in  all  my  experience  of  din- 
ner-speaking, I  never  witnessed  such  a  case  of  apparent 


HA  WTHORNE.  79 

ease.     (Easy-Chair  C himself,  one  of  the  best  makers 

of  after-dinner  or  any  other  speeches  of  our  day,  accord- 
ing to  Charles  Dickens,  —  no  inadequate  judge,  all  will 
allow,  —  never  surpassed  in  eloquent  effect  this  speech 
by  Hawthorne.)  There  was  no  hesitation,  no  sign  of 
lack  of  preparation,  but  he  went  on  for  about  ten  minutes 
in  such  a  masterly  manner,  that  I  declare  it  was  one 
of  the  most  successful  efforts  of  the  kind  ever  made. 
Everybody  was  delighted,  and,  when  he  sat  down,  a  wild 
and  unanimous  shout  of  applause  rattled  the  glasses  on 
the  table.  The  meaning  of  his  singular  composure  on 
that  occasion  I  could  never  get  him  satisfactorily  to 
explain,  and  the  only  remark  I  ever  heard  him  make,  in 
any  way  connected  with  this  marvellous  exhibition  of 
coolness,  was  simply,  "What  a  confounded  fool  I  was  to 
go  down  to  that  speech-making  dinner  ! " 

During  all  those  long  years,  while  Hawthorne  was 
absent  in  Europe,  he  was  anything  but  an  idle  man.  On 
the  contrary,  he  was  an  eminently  busy  one,  in  the.  best 
sense  of  that  term  ;  and  if  his  life  had  been  prolonged, 
the  public  would  have  been  a  rich  gainer  for  his  resi- 
dence abroad.  His  brain  teemed  with  romances,  and 
once  I  remember  he  told  me  he  had  no  less  than  five 
stories,  well  thought  out,  any  one  of  which  he  could 
finish  and  publish  whenever  he  chose  to.  There  was  one 
subject  for  a  work  of  imagination  that  seems  to  have 
haunted  him  for  years,  and  he  has  mentioned  it  twice  in 
his  journal.  This  was  the  subsequent  life  of  the  young 
man  whom  Jesus,  looking  on,  "  loved,"  and  whom  he  bade 
to  sell  all  that  he  had  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  take  up 
his  cross  and  follow  him.  "  Something  very  deep  and 
beautiful  might  be  made  out  of  this,"  Hawthorne  said, 
"  for  the  young  man  went  away  sorrowful,  and  is  not 
recorded  to  have  done  what  he  was  bidden  to  do." 

One  of  the  most  difficult  matters  he  had   to    manage 


ov 


80  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

while  in  England  was  the  publication  of  Miss  Bacon's 
singular  book  on  Shakespeare.  The  poor  lady,  after  he 
had  agreed  to  see  the  work  through  the  press,  broke  off  all 
correspondence  with  him  in  a  storm  of  wrath,  accusing  him 
of  pusillanimity  in  not  avowing  full  faith  in  her  theory  ; 
so  that,  as  he  told  me,  so  far  as  her  good-will  was  con- 
cerned, he  had  not  gained  much  by  taking  the  responsi- 
bility of  her  book  upon  his  shoulders.  It  was  a  heavy 
weight  for  him  to  bear  in  more  senses  than  one,  for  he 
paid  out  of  his  own  pocket  the  expenses  of  publication. 

I  find  in  his  letters  constant  references  to  the  kind- 
ness with  which  he  was  treated  in  London.  He  spoke 
of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall  as  "  one  of  the  best  and  warmest- 
hearted  women  in  the  world."  Leigh  Hunt,  in  his  way, 
pleased  and  satisfied  him  more  than  almost  any  man  he 
had  seen  in  England.  "As  for  other  literary  men,"  he 
says  in  one  of  his  letters,  "  I  doubt  whether  London  can 
muster  so  good  a  dinner-party  as  that  which  assembles 
every  month  at  the  marble  palace  in  School  Street." 

All  sorts  of  adventures  befell  him  during  his  stay  in 
Europe,  even  to  that  of  having  his  house  robbed,  and  his 
causing  the  thieves  to  be  tried  and  sentenced  to  trans- 
portation.  In  the  summer-time  he  travelled  about  the 
country  in  England  and  pitched  his  tent  wherever  fancy 
prompted.  One  autumn  afternoon  in  September  he  writes 
to  me  from  Leamington  :  — 

"  I  received  your  letter  only  this  morning',  at  this  cleanest  and 
prettiest  of  English  towns,  where  we  are  going  to  spend  a  week  or 
two  before  taking  our  departure  for  Paris.  We  are  acquainted 
with  Leamington  already,  having  resided  here  two  summers  ago  ; 
and  the  country  round  about  is  unadulterated  England,  rich  in  old 
castles,  manor-houses,  churches,  and  thatched  cottages,  and  as  green 
as  Paradise  itself.  I  only  wish  I  had  a  house  here,  and  that  you 
could  come  and  be  my  guest  in  it ;  but  I  am  a  poor  wayside  vaga- 
bond, and  only  find  shelter  for  a  night  or  so,  and  then  trudge  on- 
ward  again.     My  wife  and  children  and  myself  are  familiar  with  aU 


HAWTHORNE.  8: 


kinds  of  lodgement  and  modes  of  living,  but  we  have  forgotten  what 
home  is,  —  at  least  the  children  have,  poor  things  !  I  doubt  whether 
they  will  ever  feel  inclined  to  live  long  in  one  place.  The  worst  of 
it  is,  I  have  outgrown  my  house  in  Concord,  and  feel  no  inclination 
to  return  to  it. 

"  We  spent  seven  weeks  in  Manchester,  and  went  most  diligently 
to  the  Art  Exhibition;  and  I  really  begin  to  be  sensible  of  the 
rudiments  of  a  taste  in  pictures." 

It  was  during  one  of  his  rambles  with  Alexander  Ire- 
land through  the  Manchester  Exhibition  rooms  that  Haw- 
thorne saw  Tennyson  wandering  about.  I  have  always 
thought  it  unfortunate  that  these  two  men  of  genius 
could  not  have  been  introduced  on  that  occasion.  Haw- 
thorne was  too  shy  to  seek  an  introduction,  and  Tennyson 
was  not  aware  that  the  American  author  was  present. 
Hawthorne  records  in  his  journal  that  he  gazed  at  Tennyson 
with  all  his  eyes,  "and  rejoiced  more  in  him  than  in  all 
the  other  wonders  of  the  Exhibition."  AYhen  I  afterward 
told  Tennyson  that  the  author  whose  "  Twice-Told  Tales  " 
he  happened  to  be  then  reading  at  Farringford  had  met 
him  at  Manchester,  but  did  not  make  himself  known,  the 
Laureate  said  in  Ins  frank  and  hearty  manner :  "  Why 
did  n't  he  come  up  and  let  me  shake  hands  with  him  ?  I 
am  sure  I  should  have  been  glad  to  meet  a  man  like 
Hawthorne  anywhere." 

At  the  close  of  1857  Hawthorne  writes  to  me  that  he 
hears  nothing  of  the  appointment  of  his  successor  in  the 
consulate,  since  he  had  sent  in  his  resignation.  "  Some- 
body may  turn  up  any  day,"  he  says,  "  with  a  new  com- 
mission in  his  pocket."  He  was  meanwhile  getting  ready 
for  Italy,  and  he  writes,  "  I  expect  shortly  to  be  released 
from  durance." 

In  his  last  letter  before  leaving  England  for  the  Conti- 
nent he  says :  — 

"I  made  up  a  huge  package  the  other  day,  consisting  of  seven 
closely  written  volumes  of  journal,  kept  by  ms  since  my  arrival  in 
4*  p 


82  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

England,  and  filled  with  sketches  of  places  and  men  and  manners, 
many  of  which  would  doubtless  be  very  delightful  to  the  public.  I 
think  I  shall  seal  them  up,  with  directions  in  my  will  to  have  them 
opened  and  published  a  century  hence ;  and  your  firm  shall  have 
the  refusal  of  them  then. 

"  Remember  me  to  everybody,  for  I  love  all  my  friends  at  least  as 
well  as  ever." 

Eeleased  from  the  cares  of  office,  and  having  nothing 
to  distract  his  attention,  his  life  on  the  Continent  opened 
full  of  delightful  excitement.  His  pecuniary  situation 
was  such  as  to  enable  him  to  live  very  comfortably  in  a 
country  where,  at  that  time,  prices  were  moderate. 

In  a  letter  dated  from  a  villa  near  Florence  on  the  3d 
of  September,  1858,  he  thus  describes  in  a  charming 
manner  his  way  of  life  in  Italy :  — 

"  I  am  afraid  I  have  stayed  away  too  long,  and  am  forgotten  by 
everybody.  You  have  piled  up  the  dusty  remnants  of  my  editions, 
I  suppose,  in  that  chamber  over  the  shop,  where  you  once  took  me 
to  smoke  a  cigar,  and  have  crossed  my  name  out  of  your  list  of 
authors,  without  so  much  as  asking  whether  I  am  dead  or  alive. 
But  I  like  it  well  enough,  nevertheless.  It  is  pleasant  to  feel  at 
last  that  I  am  really  away  from  America,  —  a  satisfaction  that  I 
never  enjoyed  as  long  as  I  stayed  in  Liverpool,  where  it  seemed  to 
me  that  the  quintessence  of  nasal  and  hand-shaking  Yankeedom 
was  continually  filtered  and  sublimated  through  my  consulate,  on 
the  way  outward  and  homeward.  I  first  got  acquainted  with  my 
own  countrymen  there.  At  Rome,  too,  it  was  not  much  better. 
But  here  in  Florence,  and  in  the  summer-time,  and  in  this  secluded 
villa,  I  have  escaped  out  of  all  my  old  tracks,  and  am  really  remote. 

"  I  like  my  present  residence  immensely.  The  house  stands  on  a 
hill,  overlooking  Florence,  and  is  big  enough  to  quarter  a  regiment ; 
insomuch  that  each  member  of  the  family,  including  servants,  has  a 
separate  suite  of  apartments,  and  there  are  vast  wildernesses  of  up- 
per rooms  into  which  we  have  never  yet  sent  exploring  expeditions. 

"  At  one  end  of  the  house  there  is  a  moss-grown  tower,  haunted 
by  owls  and  by  the  ghost  of  a  monk,  who  was  confined  there  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  previous  to  being  burned  at  the  stake  in  the 
principal  square  of  Florence.  I  hire  this  villa,  tower  and  all,  at 
twenty-eight  dollars  a  month ;  but  I  mean  to  take  it  away  bodih 


HA  WTHORNE.  83 

and  clap  it  into  a  romance,  which  I  have  in  my  head  ready  to  be 
written  out. 

"  Speaking  of  romances.  I  have  planned  two,  one  or  both  of  which 
I  could  have  ready  for  the  press  in  a  few  months  if  I  were  either  in 
England  or  America.  But  I  find  this  Italian  atmosphere  not  favora- 
ble to  the  close  toil  of  composition,  although  it  is  a  very  good  air  to 
dream  in.  I  must  breathe  the  fogs  of  old  England  or  the  cast-winds 
of  Massachusetts,  in  order  to  put  me  into  working  trim.  Neverthe- 
less, I  shall  endeavor  to  be  busy  during  the  coming  winter  at  Rohm-, 
but  there  will  be  so  much  to  distract  my  thoughts  that  I  have  little 
hope  of  seriously  accomplishing  anything.  It  is  a  pity  ;  for  I  have 
really  a  plethora  of  ideas,  and  should  feel  relieved  by  discharging 
some  of  them  upon  the  public. 

"  We  shall  continue  here  till  the  end  of  this  month,  and  shall 
then  return  to  Rome,  where  I  have  already  taken  a  house  for  six 
months.  In  the  middle  of  April  we  intend  to  start  for  home  by  the 
way  of  Geneva  and  Paris ;  and,  after  spending  a  few  weeks  in  Eng- 
land, shall  embark  for  Boston  in  July  or  the  beginning  of  August. 
After  so  long  an  absence  (more  than  five  years  already,  which  will 
be  six  before  you  see  me  at  the  old  Corner),  it  is  not  altogether 
delightful  to  think  of  returning.  Everybody  will  be  changed,  and 
I  myself,  no  doubt,  as  much  as  anybody.  Ticknor  and  you,  I  sup- 
pose, were  both  upset  in  the  late  religious  earthquake,  and  when 
I  inquire  for  you  the  clerks  will  direct  me  to  the  '  Business  Men's 
Conference.'  It  won't  do.  I  shall  be  forced  to  come  back  again  and 
take  refuge  in  a  London  lodging.  London  is  like  the  grave  in  one 
respect,  —  any  man  can  make  himself  at  home  there;  and  whenever 
a  man  finds  himself  homeless  elsewhere,  he  had  better  either  die  or 
go  to  London. 

"  Speaking  of  the  grave  reminds  me  of  old  age  and  other  disa- 
greeable  matters;  and  I  would  remark  that  one  grows  old  in  Italy 
twice  or  three  times  as  fast  as  in  other  countries.  I  have  three 
gray  hairs  now  for  one  that  I  brought  from  England,  and  I  shall 
look  venerable  indeed  by  next  summer,  when  I  return. 

"  Remember  me  affectionately  to  all  my  friends.  Whoever  has  a 
kindness  for  me  may  be  assured  that  I  have  twice  as  much  for  him."' 

Hawthorne's  second  visit  to  Rome,  in  the  winter  of 
1859,  was  not  a  fortunate  one.  His  own  health  was 
excellent  during  his  sojourn  there,  but  several  members 
of  his  family  fell  ill,  and  he  became  very  nervous  and 
longed  to  get  away.    In  one  of  his  letters  he  says  :  — 


84  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


"  I  bitterly  detest  Rome,  and  shall  rejoice  to  bid  it  farewell  for- 
ever; and  I  fully  acquiesce  in  all  the  mischief  and  ruin  that  has 
happened  to  it,  from  Nero's  conflagration  downward.  In  fact,  I  wish 
the  very  site  had  been  obliterated  before  I  ever  saw  it." 

He  found  solace,  however,  during  the  series  of  domestic 
troubles  (continued  illness  in  his  family)  that  befell,  in 
writing  memoranda  for  "The  Marble  Faun."  He  thus 
announces  to  me  the  beginning  of  the  new  romance :  — 

"I  take  some  credit  to  myself  for  having  sternly  shut  myself  up 
for  an  hour  or  two  almost  every  day,  and  come  to  close  grips  with  a 
romance  which  I  have  been  trying  to  tear  out  of  my  mind.  As  for 
my  success,  I  can't  say  much ;  indeed,  I  don't  know  what  to  say  at 
all.  I  only  know  that  I  have  produced  what  seems  to  be  a  larger 
amount  of  scribble  than  either  of  my  former  romances,  and  that 
portions  of  it  interested  me  a  good  deal  while  I  was  writing  them ; 
but  1  have  had  so  many  interruptions,  from  things  to  see  and  things 
to  suffer,  that  the  story  has  developed  itself  in  a  very  imperfect  way, 
and  will  have  to  be  revised  hereafter.  I  could  finish  it  for  the  press 
in  the  time  that  I  am  to  remain  here  (till  the  loth  of  April),  but  my 
brain  is  tired  of  it  just  now ;  and,  besides,  there  are  many  objects  that 
I  shall  regret  not  seeing  hereafter,  though  I  care  very  little  about 
seeing  them  now ;  so  I  shall  throw  aside  the  romance,  and  take  it 
up  again  next  August  at  The  Wayside." 

He  decided  to  be  back  in  England  early  in  the  summer, 
and  to  sail  for  home  in  July.  He  writes  to  me  from 
Rome :  — 

"  I  shall  go  home,  I  fear,  with  a  heavy  heart,  not  expecting  to  be 

very   well   contented   there If  I  were  but  a  hundred    times 

richer  than  I  am,  how  very  comfortable  I  could  be  !  I  consider  it  a 
great  piece  of  good  fortune  that  I  have  had  experience  of  the  discom- 
forts and  miseries  of  Italy,  and  did  not  go  directly  home  from  Eng- 
land.    Anything  will  seem  like  Paradise  after  a  Roman  winter. 

"  If  I  had  but  a  house  fit  to  live  in,  I  should  be  greatly  more  rec- 
onciled to  coining  home;  but  I  am  really  at  a  loss  to  imagine  how 
we  are  to  squeeze  ourselves  into  that  little  old  cottage  of  mine. 
We  had  outgrown  it  before  we  came  away,  and  most  of  us  are 
twice  as  big  now  as  we  were  then. 

"  I  have  an  attachment  to  the  place,  and  should  be  sorry  to  give 
it  up;  but  I  shall  half  ruin  myself  if  I  try  to  enlarge  the  house,  and 


II A  WTHORNE.  85 

quite  if  I  build  another.  So  what  is  to  be  done  ?  Pray  have  some 
plan  for  me  before  I  get  back ;  not  that  I  think  you  can  possibly  hit 

on  anything  that  will  suit  me I  shall  return  by  way  of  Venice 

and  Geneva,  spend  two  or  three  weeks  or  more  in  Paris,  and  sail  for 
home,  as  I  said,  in  July.  It  would  be  an  exceeding  delight  to  me  to 
meet  you  or  Ticknor  in  England,  or  anywhere  else.  At  any  rate,  it 
will  cheer  my  heart  to  see  you  all  and  the  old  Corner  itself,  when  I 
touch  my  dear  native  soil  again." 

I  went  abroad  again  in  1859,  and  found  Hawthorne 
back  in  England,  working  away  diligently  at  "  The  Mar- 
ble Faun."  While  travelling  on  the  Continent,  during 
the  autumn  I  had  constant  letters  from  him,  giving 
accounts  of  his  progress  on  the  new  romance.  He  says : 
"  I  get  along  more  slowly  than  I  expected If  I  mis- 
take not,  it  will  have  some  good  chapters."  Writing  on 
the  10th  of  October  he  tells  me:  — 

"  The  romance  is  almost  finished,  a  great  heap  of  manuscript  being 
already  accumulated,  and  only  a  few  concluding  chapters  remaining 
behind.  If  hard  pushed,  I  could  have  it  ready  for  the  press  in  a 
fortnight;  but  unless  the  publishers  [Smith  and  Elder  were  to  bring 
out  the  work  in  England]  are  in  a  hurry,  I  shall  be  somewhat  longer 
about  it.  I  have  found  far  more  work  to  do  upon  it  than  I  anticipat- 
ed. To  confess  the  truth,  I  admire  it  exceedingly  at  intervals,  but 
am  liable  to  cold  fits,  during  which  I  think  it  the  most  infernal  non- 
sense. You  ask  for  the  title.  I  have  not  yet  fixed  upon  one,  but 
here  are  some  that  have  occurred  to  me  ;  neither  of  them  exactly  meets 
my  idea:  '  Monte  Beni ;  or,  The  Faun.  A  Romance.'  '  The  Romance 
of  a  Faun.'  '  The  Faun  of  Monte  Beni.'  '  Monte  Beni  :  a  Romance.' 
'  Miriam :  a  Romance.'  '  Hilda  :  a  Romance.'  '  Donatello :  a  Romance.' 
'  The  Faun  :  a  Romance.'  '  Marble  and  Man :  a  Romance.'  When  you 
have  read  the  work  (which  I  especially  wish  you  to  do  before  it  goes 
to  press),  you  will  be  able  to  select  one  of  them,  or  imagine  something 
better.  There  is  an  objection  in  my  mind  to  an  Italian  name,  though 
perhaps  Monte  Beni  might  do.  Neither  do  I  wish,  if  I  can  help  it, 
to  make  the  fantastic  aspect  of  the  book  too  prominent  by  putting 
the  Faun  into  the  title-page." 

Hawthorne  wrote  so  intensely  on  his  new  story,  that  he 
was  quite  worn  down  before  he  finished  it.  To  recruit 
his  strength  he  went  to  Redcar  where  the  bracing  air  of 


86  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS 

the  German  Ocean  soon  counteracted  the  ill  effect  of 
overwork.  "  The  Marble  Faun "  was  in  the  London 
printing-office  in  November,  and  he  seemed  very  glad  to 
have  it  off  his  hands.  His  letters  to  me  at  this  time  (I 
was  still  on  the  Continent)  were  jubilant  with  hope.  He 
was  living  in  Leamington,  and  was  constantly  writing  to 
me  that  I  should  find  the  next  two  months  more  com- 
fortable in  England  than  anywhere  else.  On  the  17th  he 
writes :  — 

"  The  Italian  spring  commences  in  February,  which  is  certainly  an 
advantage,  especially  as  from  February  to  May  is  the  most  dis- 
agreeable portion  of  the  English  year.  But  it  is  always  summer  by 
a  bright  coal-fire.  We  find  nothing  to  complain  of  in  the  climate  of 
Leamington.  To  be  sure,  we  cannot  always  see  our  hands  before  us 
for  fog ;  but  I  like  fog,  and  do  not  care  about  seeing  my  hand  before 
me.  We  have  thought  of  staying  here  till  after  Christmas  and  then 
going  somewhere  else,  —  perhaps  to  Bath,  perhaps  to  Devonshire. 
But  all  this  is  uncertain.  Leamington  is  not  so  desirable  a  residence 
in  winter  as  in  summer ;  its  great  charm  consisting  in  the  man}'  de- 
lightful walks  and  drives,  and  in  its  neighborhood  to  interesting  places. 
I  have  quite  finished  the  book  (some  time  ago)  and  have  sent  it  to 
Smith  and  Elder,  who  tell  me  it  is  in  the  printer's  hands,  but  I  have 
received  no  proof-sheets.  They  wrote  to  request  another  title  in- 
stead of  the  '  Romance  of  Monte  Beni,'  and  I  sent  them  their  choice 
of  a  dozen.  I  don't  know  what  they  have  chosen ;  neither  do  I 
understand  their  objection  to  the  above.  Perhaps  they  don't  like 
the  book  at  all  ;  but  I  shall  not  trouble  myself  about  that,  as  long 
as  they  publish  it  and  pay  me  my  £  600.  For  my  part,  I  think  it 
much  my  best  romance  ;  but  I  can  see  some  points  where  it  is  open 
to  assault.  If  it  could  have  appeared  first  in  America,  it  would  have 
been  a  safe  thing.  .  .  . 

"  I  mean  to  spend  the  rest  of  my  abode  in  England  in  blessed 
idleness  :  and  as  for  my  journal,  in  the  first  place  I  have  not  got  it 
here ;  secondly,  there  is  nothing  in  it  that  will  do  to  publish." 


Hawthorne  was,  indeed,  a  consummate  artist,  and  I  do 
not  remember  a  single  slovenly  passage  in  all  his  ac- 
knowledged writings.     It  was  a  privilege,  and  one  that 


HAWTHORNE.  87 


I  can  never  sufficiently  estimate,  to  have  known  him 

personally  through  so  many  years.     He  was  unlike  any 

other   author   I    have  met,   and  there    were    qualities  in 

his  nature  so  sweet  and  commendable,  that,  through  all 

his  shy  reserve,  they  sometimes  asserted  themselves  in  a 

marked  and  conspicuous  manner.     I    have   known  rude 

people,  who  were  jostling  him  in  a  crowd,  give  way  at 

the  sound  of  his  low  and  almost  irresolute  voice,  so  potent 

was  the  gentle  spell  of  command  that  seemed  born  of  his 

genius. 

Although  he  was  apt  to  keep  aloof  from  his  kind,  and 

did  not  hesitate  frequently  to  announce  by  his  manner 

that 

"  Solitude  to  him 
\V;is  blithe  society,  who  tilled  the  air 
With  gladness  and  involuntary  songs," 

I  ever  found  him,  like  Milton's  Raphael,  an  "  affable  " 
angel,  and  inclined  to  converse  on  whatever  was  human 
and  good  in  life. 

Here  are  some  more  extracts  from  the  letters  he  wrote 
to  me  while  he  was  engaged  on  "  The  Marble  Faun." 
On  the  11th  of  February,  1860,  he  writes  from  Leam- 
ington in  England  (I  was  then  in  Italy) :  — 

"  I  received  your  letter  from  Florence,  and  conclude  that  you  are 
now  in  Rome,  and  probably  enjoying  the  Carnival,  —  a  tame  de- 
scription of  which,  by  the  by,  I  have  introduced  into  my  Romance. 

'■  I  thank  you  most  heartily  for  your  kind  wishes  in  favor  of  the 
forthcoming  work,  and  sincerely  join  my  own  prayers  to  yours  in 
its  behalf,  but  without  much  confidence  of  a  good  result.  My  own 
opinion  is,  that  I  am  not  really  a  popular  writer,  and  that  what  popu- 
larity I  have  gained  is  chiefly  accidental,  and  owing  to  other  causes 
than  my  own  kind  or  degree  of  merit.  Possibly  I  may  (or  may 
not)  deserve  something  better  than  popularity ;  but  looking  at  all 
my  productions,  and  especially  this  latter  one,  with  a  cold  or  critical 
eye,  I  can  see  that  they  do  not  make  their  appeal  to  the  popular 
mind.  It  is  odd  enough,  moreover,  that  my  own  individual  taste  is 
for  quite  another  class  of  works  than  those  which  I  myself  am  able 


88  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

to  write.     If  I  were  to  meet  with  such  books  as  mine,  by  another 
writer,  I  don't  believe  I  should  be  able  to  get  through  them. 

"  To  return  to  my  own  moonshiny  Romance  ;  its  fate  will  soon 
be  settled,  for  Smith  and  Elder  mean  to  publish  on  the  28th  of  this 
month.  Poor  Ticknor  will  have  a  tight  scratch  to  get  his  edition 
out  contemporaneously;  they  having  sent  him  the  third  volume 
only  a  week  ago.  I  think,  however,  there  will  be  no  danger  of 
piracy  in  America.  Perhaps  nobody  will  think  it  worth  stealing. 
Give  my  best  regards  to  William  Story,  and  look  well  at  his  Cleo- 
patra, for  you  will  meet  her  again  in  one  of  the  chapters  which  I  wrote 
with  most  pleasure.  If  he  does  not  find  himself  famous  henceforth, 
the  fault  will  be  none  of  mine.  I,  at  least,  have  done  my  duty  by 
him,  whatever  delinquency  there  may  be  on  the  part  of  other  critics. 

"  Smith  and  Elder  persist  in  calling  the  book  '  Transformation,' 
which  gives  one  the  idea  of  Harlequin  in  a  pantomime ;  but  I  have 
strictly  enjoined  upon  Ticknor  to  call  it  '  The  Marble  Faun ;  a  Ro- 
mance of  Monte  BenL'  " 

In  one  of  his  letters  written  at  this  period,  referring  to 
his  design  of  going  home,  he  says  :  — 

'•  I  shall  not  have  been  absent  seven  years  till  the  5th  of  July 

next,  and  I  scorn  to  touch  Yankee  soil  sooner  than  that As 

regards  going  home  I  alternate  between  a  longing  and  a  dread." 

Eeturning  to  London  from  the  Continent,  in  April,  I 
found  this  letter,  written  from  Bath,  awaiting  my  ar- 
rival :  — 

"  You  are  welcome  back.  I  really  began  to  fear  that  you  had  been 
assassinated  among  the  Apennines  or  killed  in  that  outbreak  at 
Rome.  I  have  taken  passages  for  all  of  us  in  the  steamer  which 
sails  the  16th  of  June.  Your  berths  are  Nos.  19  and  20.  I  en- 
gaged them  with  the  understanding  that  you  might  go  earlier  or  later, 
if  you  chose;  but  I  would  advise  you  to  go  on  the  16th  ;  in  the 
first  place,  because  the  state-rooms  for  our  party  are  the  most  eli- 
gible in  the  ship;  secondly,  because  we  shall  otherwise  mutually 
lose  the  pleasure  of  each  other's  company.  Besides,  I  consider  it 
my  duty,  towards  Ticknor  and  towards  Boston,  and  America  at 
large,  to  take  you  into  custody  and  bring  you  home ;  for  I  know 
you  will  never  come  except  upon  compulsion.  Let  me  know  at 
once  whether  I  am  to  use  force. 


HA  WTIWRNE.  89 


"  The  book  (The  Marble  Faun)  has  done  better  than  I  thought  it 
would  ;  for  you  will  have  discovered,  by  this  time,  that  it  is  an  auda- 
cious attempt  to  impose  a  tissue  of  absurdities  upon  the  public  by  the 
mere  art  of  style  of  narrative.  I  hardly  hoped  that  it  would  go 
down  with  John  Bull ;  but  then  it  is  always  my  best  point  of 
writing,  to  undertake  such  a  task,  and  I  really  put  what  strength  I 
have  into  many  parts  of  this  book. 

"  The  English  critics  generally  (with  two  or  three  unimportant 
exceptions)  have  been  sufficiently  favorable,  and  the  review  in  the 
Times  awarded  the  highest  praise  of  all.  At  home,  too,  the  notices 
have  been  very  kind,  so  far  as  they  have  come  under  my  eye.  Lowell 
had  a  good  one  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  Hillard  an  excellent 
one  in  the  Courier ;  and  yesterday  I  received  a  sheet  of  the  May 
number  of  the  Atlantic  containing  a  really  keen  and  profound 
article  by  Whipple,  in  which  he  goes  over  all  my  works,  and  recog- 
nizes that  element  of  unpopularity  which  (as  nobody  knows  better 
than  myself)  pervades  them  all.  I  agree  with  almost  all  he  says, 
except  that  I  am  conscious  of  not  deserving  nearly  so  much 
praise.  When  I  get  home,  I  will  try  to  write  a  more  genial  book; 
but  the  Devil  himself  always  seems  to  get  into  my  inkstand,  aud  I 
can  only  exorcise  him  by  pensful  at  a  time. 

"  I  am  coming  to  London  very  soon,  and  mean  to  spend  a  fort- 
night of  next  month  there.  I  have  been  quite  homesick  through 
this  past  dreary  winter.  Did  you  ever  spend  a  winter  in  England  ? 
If  not,  reserve  your  ultimate  conclusion  about  the  country  until 
you  have  done  so." 

We  met  in  London  early  in  May,  and,  as  our  lodgings 
were  not  far  apart,  we  were  frequently  together.  I  recall 
many  pleasant  dinners  with  him  and  mutual  friends  in 
various  charming  seaside  and  country-side  places.  We 
used  to  take  a  run  down  to  Greenwich  or  Blackwall  once  or 
twice  a  week,  and  a  trip  to  Richmond  was  always  grateful 
to  him.  Bennoch  was  constantly  planning  a  day's  happi- 
ness for  his  friend,  and  the  hours  at  that  pleasant  season 
of  the  year  were  not  long  enough  for  our  delights.  In 
London  we  strolled  along  the  Strand,  day  after  day,  now 
diving  into  Bolt  Court,  in  pursuit  of  Johnson's  where- 
abouts, and  now  stumbling  around  the  Temple,  where 
Goldsmith   at  one   time   had  his   quarters.     Hawthorne 


90  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

was  never  weary  of  standing  on  London  Bridge,  and 
watching  the  steamers  plying  up  and  down  the  Thames. 
I  was  much  amused  by  his  manner  towards  importu- 
nate and  sometimes  impudent  beggars,  scores  of  whom 
would  attack  us  even  in  the  shortest  walk.  He  had  a 
mild  way  of  making  a  severe  and  cutting  remark,  which 
used  to  remind  me  of  a  little  incident  which  Charlotte 
Cushman  once  related  to  me.  She  said  a  man  in  the 
gallery  of  a  theatre  (I  think  she  was  on  the  stage  at  the 
time)  made  such  a  disturbance  that  the  play  could  not 
proceed.  Cries  of  "  Throw  him  over  "  arose  from  all  parts 
of  the  house,  and  the  noise  became  furious.  All  was 
tumultuous  chaos  until  a  sweet  and  gentle  female  voice 
was  heard  in  the  pit,  exclaiming,  "  No  !  I  pray  you  don't 
■throw  him  over  !  I  beg  of  you,  dear  friends,  don't  throw 
him  over,  but  —  kill  him  where  he  is." 

One  of  our  most  royal  times  was  at  a  parting  dinner 
at  the  house  of  Barry  Cornwall.  Among  the  notables 
present  were  Kinglake  and  Leigh  Hunt.  Our  kind- 
hearted  host  and  his  admirable  wife  greatly  delighted  in 
Hawthorne,  and  they  made  this  occasion  a  most  grateful 
one  to  him.  I  remember  when  we  went  up  to  the  draw- 
ing-ruoni  to  join  the  ladies  after  dinner,  the  two  dear  old 
poets,  Ltrffgh  Hunt  and  Barry  Cornwall,  mounted  the 
stairs  with  their  arms  round  each  other  in  a  very  tender 
and  loving  way.  Hawthorne  often  referred  to  this  scene 
•as  one  he  would  not  have  missed  for  a  great  deal. 

His  renewed  intercourse  with  Motley  in  England  gave 
him  peculiar  pleasure,  and  his  genius  found  an  ardent 
admirer  in  the  eminent  historian.  He  did  not  go  much 
into  society  at  that  time,  but  there  were  a  few  houses  in 
London  where  he  always  seemed  happy. 

I  met  him  one  night  at  a  great  evening-party,  looking 
on  from. a  nook  a  little  removed  from  the  full  ulare  of  the 
soiree.     Soon,  however,  it  was  whispered  about  that  the 


HAWTHORNE.  91 


famous  American  romance-writer  was  in  the  room,  and 
an  enthusiastic  English  lady,  a  genuine  admirer  and 
intelligent  reader  of  his  books,  ran  for  her  album  and 
attacked  him  for  "  a  few  words  and  his  name  at  the  end." 
He  looked  dismally  perplexed,  and  turning  to  me  said 
imploringly  in  a  whisper,  "  For  pity's  sake,  what  shall  I 
write  ?  I  can't  think  of  a  word  to  add  to  my  name. 
Help  me  to  something."  Thinking  him  partly  in  fun, 
I  said,  "  Write  an  original  couplet,  —  this  one,  for  in- 
stance, — 

'  When  this  you  see, 
Remember  me,'" 

and  to  my  amazement  he  stepped  forward  at  once  to  the 
table,  wrote  the  foolish  lines  I  had  suggested,  and,  shut- 
ting the  book,  handed  it  very  contentedly  to  the  happy 
lady. 

We  sailed  from  England  together  in  the  month  of  June, 
as  we  had  previously  arranged,  and  our  voyage  home  was, 
to  say  the  least,  an  unusual  one.  We  had  calm  summer, 
moonlight  weather,  with  no  storms.  Mrs.  Stowe  was  on 
board,  and  in  her  own  cheery  and  delightful  way  she 
enlivened  the  passage  with  some  capital  stories  of  her 
early  life. 

When  we  arrived  at  Queenstown,  the  captain  an- 
nounced to  us  that,  as  the  ship  would  wait  there  six 
hours,  we  might  go  ashore  and  see  something  of  our 
Irish  friends.  So  we  chartered  several  jaunting-cars, 
after  much  tribulation  and  delay  in  arranging  terms  with 
the  drivers  thereof,  and  started  off  on  a  merry  exploring 
expedition.  I  remember  there  was  a  good  deal  of  racing 
up  and  down  the  hills  of  Queenstown,  much  shouting 
and  laughing,  and  crowds  of  beggars  howling  after  us  for 
pence  and  beer.  The  Irish  jaunting-car  is  a  peculiar 
institution,  and  we  all  sat  with  our  legs  dangling  over 
the  road  in  a  "  dim  and  perilous  way."     Occasionally  a 


92  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


horse  would  give  out,  for  the  animals  were  sad  specimens, 
poorly  fed  and  wofully  driven.  We  were  almost  devoured 
by  the  ragamuffins  that  ran  beside  our  wheels,  and  I 
remember  the  "sad  civility"  with  which  Hawthorne  re- 
garded their  clamors.  We  had  provided  ourselves  before 
starting  with  much  small  coin,  which,  however,  gave  out 
during  our  first  mile.  Hawthorne  attempted  to  explain 
our  inability  further  te  supply  their  demands,  having,  as 
he  said  to  them,  nothing  less  than  a  sovereign  in  his 
pocket,  when  a  voice  from  the  crowd  shouted,  "  Bedad, 
your  honor,  I  can  change  that  for  ye " ;  and  the  knave 
actually  did  it  on  the  spot. 

Hawthorne's  love  for  the  sea  amounted  to  a  passionate 
worship ;  and  while  I  (the  worst  sailor  probably  on  this 
planet)  was  longing,  spite  of  the  good  company  on  board, 
to  reach  land  as  soon  as  possible,  Hawthorne  was  con- 
stantly saying  in  his  quiet,  earnest  way,  "  I  should  like  to 
sail  on  and  on  forever,  and  never  touch  the  shore  again." 
He  liked  to  stand  alone  in  the  bows  of  the  ship  and  see 
the  sun  go  down,  and  he  was  never  tired  of  walking  the 
deck  at  midnight.  I  used  to  watch  his  dark,  solitary 
figure  under  the  stars,  pacing  up  and  down  some  unfre- 
quented part  of  the  vessel,  musing  and  half  melancholy. 
Sometimes  he  would  lie  down  beside  me  and  commiserate 
my  unquiet  condition.  Seasickness,  he  declared,  he  could 
not  understand,  and  was  constantly  recommending  most 
extraordinary  dishes  and  drinks,  "all  made  out  of  the 
artist's  brain,"  which  he  said  were  sovereign  remedies  for 
nautical  illness.  I  remember  to  this  day  some  of  the 
preparations  which,  in  his  revelry  of  fancy,  he  would 
advise  me  to  take,  a  farrago  of  good  things  almost 
rivalling  "  Oberon's  Feast,"  spread  out  so  daintily  in 
Herrick's  "  Hesperides."  He  thought,  at  first,  if  I  could 
bear  a  few  roc's  eggs  beaten  up  by  a  mermaid  on  a 
dolphin's  back,  I  might  be  benefited.     He  decided  that  a 


HA  WTHORNE.  93 


gruel  made  from  a  sheaf  of  Eobin  Hood's  arrows  would 
be  strengthening.  When  suffering  pain,  "  a  right  gude 
willie-waught,"  or  a  stiff  cup  of  hemlock  of  the  Socrates 
brand,  before  retiring,  he  considered  very  good.  He  said 
he  had  heard  recommended  a  dose  of  salts  distilled  from 
the  tears  of  Niobe,  but  he  did  n't  approve  of  that  remedy. 
He  observed  that  he  had  a  high  opinion  of  hearty  food, 
such  as  potted  owl  with  Minerva  sauce,  airy  tongues  of 
sirens,  stewed  ibis,  livers  of  Koman  Capitol  geese,  the 
wings  of  a  Phoenix  not  too  much  done,  love-lorn  night- 
ingales cooked  briskly  over  Aladdin's  lamp,  chicken-pies 
made  of  fowls  raised  by  Mrs.  Carey,  Nautilus  chowder, 
and  the  like.  Fruit,  by  all  means,  should  always  be 
taken  by  an  uneasy  victim  at  sea,  especially  Atalanta 
pippins  and  purple  grapes  raised  by  Bacchus  &  Co. 
Examining  my  garments  one  day  as  I  lay  on  deck,  he 
thought  I  was  not  warmly  enough  clad,  and  he  recom- 
mended, before  I  took  another  voyage,  that  I  should  fit 
myself  out  in  Liverpool  with  a  good  warm  shirt  from  the 
shop  of  Nessus  &  Co.  in  Bold  Street,  where  I  could  also 
find  stout  seven-league  boots  to  keep  out  the  damp.  He 
knew  another  shop,  he  said,  where  I  could  buy  raven- 
down  stockings,  and  sable  clouds  with  a  silver  lining, 
most  warm  and  comfortable  for  a  sea  voyage. 

His  own  appetite  was  excellent,  and  day  after  day  he 
used  to  come  on  deck  after  dinner  and  describe  to  me 
what  he  had  eaten.  Of  course  his  accounts  were  always 
exaggerations,  for  my  amusement.  I  remember  one  night 
he  gave  me  a  running  catalogue  of  what  food  he  had 
partaken  during  the  day,  and  the  sum  total  was  convuls- 
ing from  its  absurdity.  Among  the  viands  he  had 
consumed,  I  remember  he  stated  there  were  "  several 
yards  of  steak,"  and  a  "  whole  warrenful  of  Welsh  rab- 
bits." The  "  divine  spirit  of  Humor "  was  upon  him 
during  many  of  those  days  at  sea,  and  he  revelled  in  it 
like  a  careless  child. 


94  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


That  was  a  voyage,  indeed,  long  to  be  remembered,  and 
I  shall  ever  look  back  upon  it  as  the  most  satisfactory 
"sea  turn"  I  ever  happened  to  experience.  I  have 
sailed  many  a  weary,  watery  mile  since  then,  but  Haw- 
thorne was  not  on  board  ! 

The  summer  after  his  arrival  home  he  spent  quietly  in 
Concord,  at  the  Wayside,  and  illness  in  his  family  made 
him  at  times  unusually  sad.  In  one  of  his  notes  to  me 
he  says : — 

"  I  am  continually  reminded  nowadays  of  a  response  which  I 
once  heard  a  drunken  sailor  make  to  a  pious  gentleman,  who 
asked  him  how  he  felt ,  '  Pretty  d — d  miserable,  thank  God ! '  It 
very  well  expresses  my  thorough  discomfort  and  forced  acquies- 
cence." 

Occasionally  he  wrote  requesting  me  to  make  a  change, 
here  and  there,  in  the  new  edition  of  his  works  then 
passing  through  the  press.  On  the  23d  of  September, 
1860,  he  writes  :  — 

"  Please  to  append  the  following  note  to  the  foot  of  the  page,  at 
the  commencement  of  the  story  called  '  Dr.  Heidegger's  Expeiiment, 
in  the  '  Twice-Told  Tales ' :  '  In  an  English  Review,  not  long  since,  I 
have  been  accused  of  plagiarizing  the  idea  of  this  story  from  a 
chapter  in  one  of  the  novels  of  Alexandre  Dumas.  There  has  un- 
doubtedly been  a  plagiarism,  on  one  side  or  the  other ;  but  as  my 
story  was  written  a  good  deal  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  and  as 
the  novel  is  of  considerably  more  recent  date,  I  take  pleasure  in 
thinking  that  M.  Dumas  has  done  me  the  honor  to  appropriate  one 
of  the  fanciful  conceptions  of  my  earlier  days.  He  is  heartily  wel- 
come to  it ;  nor  is  it  the  only  instance,  by  many,  in  which  the  great 
French  romancer  has  exercised  the  privilege  of  commanding  genius 
by  confiscating  the  intellectual  property  of  less  famous  people  to  his 
own  use  and  behoof.'  " 

Hawthorne  was  a  diligent  reader  of  the  Bible,  and 
when  sometimes,  in  my  ignorant  way,  I  would  question, 
in  a  proof-sheet,  his  use  of  a  word,  he  would  almost 
always  refer  me  to  the  Bible  as  his  authority.  It  was  a 
great  pleasure  to  hear  him  talk  about  the  Book  of  Job, 


HAWTHORNE.  95 


and  his  voice  would  be  tremulous  with  feeling,  as  he 
sometimes  quoted  a  touching  passage  from  the  New 
Testament.     In  one  of  his  letters  he  says  to  me :  — 

"  Did  not  I  suggest  to  you,  last  summer,  the  publication  of  the 
Bible  in  ten  or  twelve  12mo  volumes  ?  I  think  it  would  have  great 
success,  and,  at  least  (but,  as  a  publisher,  I  suppose  this  is  the  very 
smallest  of  your  cares),  it  would  result  in  the  salvation  of  a  great 
many  souls,  who  will  never  find  their  way  to  heaven,  if  left  to  learn 
it  from  the  inconvenient  editions  of  the  Scriptures  now  in  use.  It  is 
very  singular  that  this  form  of  publishing  the  Bible  in  a  single  bulky 
or  closely  printed  volume  should  be  so  long  continued.  It  was  first 
adopted,  I  suppose,  as  being  the  universal  mode  of  publication  at 
the  time  when  the  Bible  was  translated.  Shakespeare,  and  the  other 
old  dramatists  and  poets,  were  first  published  in  the  same  form ; 
but  all  of  them  have  long  since  been  broken  into  dozens  and  scorea 
of  portable  and  readable  volumes;  and  why  not  the  Bible?" 

During  this  period,  after  his  return  from  Europe,  I  sa^ 
him  frequently  at  the  Wayside,  in  Concord.  He  no™ 
seemed  happy  in  the  dwelling  he  had  put  in  order  for 
the  calm  and  comfort  of  his  middle  and  later  life.  He 
had  added  a  tower  to  his  house,  in  which  he  could  be 
safe  from  intrusion,  and  where  he  could  muse  and  write. 
Never  was  poet  or  romancer  more  fitly  shrined.  Drum' 
mond  at  Hawthornden,  Scott  at  Abbotsford,  Dickens  at 
Gad's  Hill,  Irving  at  Sunnyside,  were  not  more  appro- 
priately sheltered.  Shut  up  in  his  tower,  he  could  escape 
from  the  tumult  of  life,  and  be  alone  with  only  the  birds 
and  the  bees  in  concert  outside  his  casement.  The  view 
from  this  apartment,  on  every  side,  was  lovely,  and  Haw- 
thorne enjoyed  the  charming  prospect  as  I  have  known 
few  men  to  enjoy  nature. 

His  favorite  walk  lay  near  his  house,  —  indeed  it  was 
part  of  his  own  grounds,  —  a  little  hillside,  where  he  had 
worn  a  foot-path,  and  where  he  might  be  found  in  good 
weather,  when  not  employed  in  the  tower.  While  walk- 
ing to  and  fro  on  this  bit  of  rising  ground  he  meditated 


96  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  composed  innumerable  romances  that  were  never 
written,  as  well  as  some  that  were.  Here  he  first  an- 
nounced to  me  his  plan  of  "The  Dolliver  Bomance," 
and,  from  what  he  told  me  of  his  design  of  the  story  as 
it  existed  in  his  mind,  I  thought  it  would  have  been  the 
greatest  of  his  books.  An  enchanting  memory  is  left  of 
that  morning  when  he  laid  out  the  whole  story  before  me 
as  he  intended  to  write  it.  The  plot  was  a  grand  one,  and 
I  tried  to  tell  him  how  much  I  was  impressed  by  it.  Very 
soon  after  our  interview,  he  wrote  to  me  :  — 

"  In  compliance  with  your  exhortations,  I  have  begun  to  think 
seriously  of  that  story,    not,  as  yet,   with  a  pen  in  my  hand,  but 

trudging  to  and  fro  on  my  hilltop I  don't  mean  to  let  you  see 

the  first  chapters  till  I  have  written  the  final  sentence  of  the  story. 
Indeed,  the   first  chapters  of  a  story  ought  always  to  be  the  last 

written If  you  want  me  to  write  a  good  book,  send  me  a 

good  pen ;  not  a  gold  one,  for  they  seldom  suit  me  ;  but  a  pen  flexible 
and  capacious  of  ink,  and  that  will  not  grow  stiff  and  rheumatic  the 
moment  I  get  attached  to  it.  I  never  met  with  a  good  pen  in  my 
life." 

Time  went  on,  the  war  broke  out,  and  he  had  not  the 
heart  to  go  on  with  his  new  Romance.  During  the  month 
of  April,  1862,  he  made  a  visit  to  Washington  with  his 
friend  Ticknor,  to  whom  he  was  greatly  attached.  While 
on  this  visit  to  the  capital  he  sat  to  Leutze  for  a  portrait. 
He  took  a  special  fancy  to  the  artist,  and,  while  he  was 
sitting  to  him,  wrote  a  long  letter  to  me.  Here  is  an 
extract  from  it:  — 

"I  stay  here  only  while  Leutze  finishes  a  portrait,  which  I  think 
will  be  the  best  ever  painted  of  the  same  unworthy  subject.  One 
charm  it  must  needs  have,  —  an  aspect  of  immortal  jollity  and  well- 
to-doness  ;  for  Leutze,  when  the  sitting  begins,  gives  me  a  first- 
rate  cigar,  and  when  he  sees  me  getting  tired,  he  brings  out  a  bottle 
of  splendid  champagne  ;  and  we  quaffed  and  smoked  yesterday,  in 
a  blessed  state  of  mutual  good- will,  for  three  hours  and  a  half,  during 
which  the  picture  made  a  really  miraculous  progress.  Leutze  is  the 
best  of  fellows." 


HA  WTHORNE.  97 


In  the  same  letter  he  thus  describes  the  sinking  of  the 
Cumberland,  and  I  know  of  nothing  finer  in  its  way :  — 

"  I  see  in  a  newspaper  that  Holmes  is  going  to  write  a  song  on  the 
sinking  of  the  Cumberland  ;  and  feeling  it  to  be  a  sublet  of  national 
importance,  it  occurs  to  me  that  he  might  like  to  know  her  present 
condition.  She  lies  with  her  three  masts  sticking  up  out  of  the 
water,  and  careened  over,  the  water  being  nearly  on  a  level  with 
her  maintop,  — I  mean  that  first  landing-place  from  the  deck  of  the 
vessel,  after  climbing  the  shrouds.  The  rigging  does  not  appear  at 
all  damaged.  There  is  a  tattered  bit  of  a  pennant,  about  a  foot  and 
a  half  long,  fluttering  from  the  tip-top  of  one  of  the  masts ;  but 
the  flag,  the  ensign  of  the  ship  (which  never  was  struck,  thank 
God),  is  under  water,  so  as  to  be  quite  invisible,  being  attached  to 
the  gaff,  I  think  they  call  it,  of  the  mizzen-mast;  and  though  this 
bald  description  makes  nothing  of  it,  I  never  saw  anything  so  glo- 
riously forlorn  as  those  three  masts.  I  did  not  think  it  was  in  me 
to  be  so  moved  by  any  spectacle  of  the  kind.  Bodies  still  occasion- 
ally float  up  from  it.  The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  says  she  shall  lie 
there  till  she  goes  to  pieces,  but  I  suppose  by  and  by  they  will  sell 
her  to  some  Yankee  for  the  value  of  her  old  iron. 

"  P.  S.  My  hair  really  is  not  so  white  as  this  photograph,  which  I 
enclose,  makes  me.  The  sun  seems  to  take  an  infernal  pleasure  in 
making  me  venerable,  —  as  if  I  were  as  old  as  himself." 

Hawthorne  has  rested  so  loner  in  the  twilight  of  im- 
personality,  that  I  hesitate  sometimes  to  reveal  the  man 
even  to  his  warmest  admirers.  This  very  day  Sainte- 
Beuve  has  made  me  feel  a  fresh  reluctance  in  unveiling; 
my  friend,  and  there  seems  almost  a  reproof  in  these 
words,  from  the  eloquent  Trench  author :  — 

"  We  know  nothing  or  nearly  nothing  of  the  life  of  La  Bruyere. 
and  this  obscurity  adds,  it  has  been  remarked,  to  the  effect  cf  his 
work,  and,  it  may  be  said,  to  the  piquant  happiness  of  his  destiny. 
If  there  was  not  a  single  line  of  his  unique  book,  which  from  the 
first  instant  of  its  publication  did  not  appear  and  remain  in  the  clear 
fight,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  not  one  individual  detail  re- 
garding the  author  which  was  well  known.  Every  ray  of  the  cen- 
tury fell  upon  each  page  of  the  book  and  tne  face  of  the  man  whs 
held  it  open  in  his  hand  was  veiled  from  our  sight." 


98  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Beautifully  said,  as  usual  with.  Saiute-Beuve,  but  \ 
venture,  notwithstanding  such  eloquent  warning,  to  pro- 
ceed. 

After  his  return  home  from  Washington  Hawthorne 
sent  to  me,  during  the  month  of  May,  an  article  for  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  which  he  entitled  "  Chiefly  about  War- 
Matters."  The  paper,  excellently  well  done  throughout, 
of  course,  contained  a  personal  description  of  President 
Lincoln,  which  I  thought,  considered  as  a  portrait  of  a 
living  man,  and  drawn  by  Hawthorne,  it  would  not  be 
wise  or  tasteful  to  print.  The  office  of  an  editor  is  a 
disagreeable  one  sometimes,  and  the  case  of  Hawthorne 
on  Lincoln  disturbed  me  not  a  little.  After  reading  the 
manuscript,  I  wrote  to  the  author,  and  asked  his  per- 
mission to  omit  his  description  of  the  President's  per- 
sonal appearance.  As  usual,  —  for  he  was  the  kindest  and 
sweetest  of  contributors,  the  most  good-natured  and  the 
most  amenable  man  to  advise  I  ever  knew,  —  he  consented 
to  my  proposal,  and  allowed  me  to  print  the  article  with 
the  alterations.  If  any  one  will  turn  to  the  paper  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  (it  is  in  the  number  for  July,  1862), 
it  will  be  observed  there  are  several  notes ;  all  of  these 
were  written  by  Hawthorne  himself.  He  complied  with 
my  request  without  a  murmur,  but  he  always  thought  I 
was  wrong  in  my  decision.  He  said  the  whole  descrip- 
tion of  the  interview  and  the  President's  personal  appear- 
ance were,  to  his  mind,  the  only  parts  of  the  article  worth 
publishing.  "  What  a  terrible  thing,"  he  complained, 
"  it  is  to  try  to  let  off  a  little  bit  of  truth  into  this  mis- 
erable humbug  of  a  world  ! "  President  Lincoln  is  dead, 
and  as  Hawthorne  once  wrote  to  me,  "  Upon  my  honor,  it 
seems  to  me  the  passage  omitted  has  an  historical  value," 
I  will  copy  here  verbatim  what  I  advised  my  friend, 
both  on  his  own  account  and  the  President's,  not  to  print 
nine  years  ago.     Hawthorne  and  his  party  had  gone  into 


HA  WTHO'RNE.  99 


the  President's  room,  annexed,  as  he  says,  as  supernu- 
meraries to  a  deputation  from  a  Massachusetts  whip- 
factory,  with  a  present  of  a  splendid  whip  to  the  Chief 
Magistrate :  — 

"  By  and  by  there  was  a  little  stir  on  the  staircase  and  in  the 
passage  way,  and  in  lounged  a  tall,  loose-jointed  figure,  of  an  ex- 
aggerated Yankee  port  and  demeanor,  whom  (as  being  about  the 
homeliest  man  I  ever  saw,  yet  by  no  means  repulsive  or  disagreea- 
ble) it  was  impossible  not  to  recognize  as  Uncle  Abe. 

"  Unquestionably,  Western  man  though  he  be,  and  Kentuckian  by 
birth,  President  Lincoln  is  the  essential  representative  of  all  Yan- 
kees, and  the  veritable  specimen,  physically,  of  what  the  world 
seems  determined  to  regard  as  our  characteristic  qualities.  It  is  the 
strangest  and  yet  the  fittest  thing  in  the  jumble  of  human  vicissi- 
tudes, that  he,  out  of  so  many  millions,  unlooked  for,  unselected  by 
any  intelligible  process  that  could  be  based  upon  his  genuine  quali- 
ties, unknown  to  those  who  chose  him,  and  unsuspected  of  what 
endowments  may  adapt  him  for  his  tremendous  responsibility, 
should  have  found  the  way  open  for  him  to  fling  his  lank  person- 
ality into  the  chair  of  state,  — where,  I  presume,  it  was  his  first 
impulse  to  throw  his  legs  on  the  council- table,  and  tell  the  Cabinet. 
Ministers  a  story.  There  is  no  describing  his  lengthy  awkward- 
ness, nor  the  uncouthness  of  his  movement ;  and  yet  it  seemed  as 
if  I  had  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  him  daily,  and  had  shaken 
hands  with  him  a  thousand  times  in  some  village  street  ;  so 
true  was  he  to  the  aspect  of  the  pattern  American,  though 
with  a  certain  extravagance  which,  possibly,  I  exaggerated  still 
further  by  the  delighted  eagerness  with  which  I  took  it  in.  If  put- 
to  guess  his  calling  and  livelihood,  I  should  have  taken  him  foi 
a  country  schoolmaster  as  soon  as  anything  else.  He  was  dressed  in 
a  rusty  black  frock-coat  and  pantaloons,  unbrushed,  and  worn  so 
faithfully  that  the  suit  had  adapted  itself  to  the  curves  and  angulari- 
ties of  his  figure,  and  had  grown  to  be  an  outer  skin  of  the  man. 
He  had  shabby  slippers  on  his  feet.  His  hair  was  black,  still  un- 
mixed with  gray,  stiff,  somewhat  bushy,  and  had  apparently  beeD 
acquainted  with  neither  brush  nor  comb  that  morning,  after  the 
disarrangement  of  the  pillow  ;  and  as  to  a  nightcap,  Uncle  Abe  prob- 
ably knows  nothing  of  such  effeminacies.  His  complexion  is  dark 
and  sallow,  betokening,  I  fear,  an  insalubrious  atmosphere  around 
the  White  House;  he  has  think  black  eyebrows  and  an  impending 


too  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


brow;  his  nose  is  large,  and  the  lines  about  his  mouth  are  very 
strongly  defined. 

"  The  whole  physiognomy  is  as  coarse  a  one  as  you  would  meet 
anywhere  in  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  States;  but,  withal,  it 
is  redeemed,  illuminated,  softened,  and  brightened  by  a  kindly 
though  serious  look  out  of  his  eyes,  aud  an  expression  of  homely 
sagacity,  that  seems  weighted  with  rich  results  of  village  experi- 
ence. A  great  deal  of  native  sense ;  no  bookish  cultivation,  no  re- 
finement ;  honest  at  heart,  and  thoroughly  so,  and  yet,  in  some  sort, 
siy,  —  at  least,  endowed  with  a  sort  of  tact  and  wisdom  that  are 
akin  to  craft,  and  would  impel  him,  I  think,  to  take  an  antagonist  in 
flank,  rather  than  to  make  a  bull-run  at  him  right  in  front.  But, 
on  the  whole,  I  liked  this  sallow,  queer,  sagacious  visage,  with  the 
homely  human  sympathies  that  warmed  it ;  and,  for  my  small  share 
in  the  matter,  would  as  lief  have  Uncle  Abe  for  a  ruler  as  any  man 
whom  it  would  have  been  practicable  to  put  in  his  place. 

"  Immediately  on  his  entrance  the  President  accosted  our  mem. 
ber  of  Congress,  who  had  us  in  charge,  and,  with  a  comical  twist  of 
his  face,  made  some  jocular  remark  about  the  length  of  his  breakfast. 
He  then  greeted  us  all  round,  not  waiting  for  an  introduction,  but 
shaking  and  squeezing  everybody's  hand  with  the  utmost  cordiality, 
whether  the  individual's  name  was  announced  to  him  or  not.  His 
manner  towards  us  was  wholly  without  pretence,  but  yet  had  a  kind 
of  natural  dignity,  quite  sufficient  to  keep  the  forwardest  of  us  from 
clapping  him  on  the  shoulder  and  asking  for  a  story.  A  mutual  ac- 
quaintance being  established,  our  leader  took  the  whip  out  of  its 
case,  and  began  to  read  the  address  of  presentation.  The  whip  was 
an  exceedingly  long  one,  its  handle  wrought  in  ivory  (by  some 
artist  in  the  Massachusetts  State  Prison,  I  believe),  and  ornamented 
with  a  medallion  of  the  President,  and  other  equally  beautiful  devices  ; 
and  along  its  whole  length  there  was  a  succession  of  golden  bands  and 
ferrules.  The  address  was  shorter  than  the  whip,  but  equally  well 
made,  consisting  chiefly  of  an  explanatory  description  of  these  ar- 
tistic designs,  and  closing  with  a  hint  that  the  gift  was  a  suggestive 
and  emblematic  one,  and  that  the  President  would  recognize  the  use 
to  which  such  an  instrument  should  be  put. 

"  This  suggestion  gave  Uncle  Abe  rather  a  delicate  task  in  his 
reply,  because,  slight  as  the  matter  seemed,  it  apparently  called  for 
some  declaration,  or  intimation,  or  faint  foreshadowing  of  policy  in 
reference  to  the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  the  final  treatment  of  the 
Rebels.  But  the  President's  Yankee  aptness  and  not-to-be-caught- 
ness  stood  him  in  good  stead,  and  he  jerked  or  wiggled  himself  out 


Cy(-<^<- 


HAWTHORNE.  101 


of  the  dilemma  with  an  uncouth  dexterity  that  was  entirely  in 
character ;  although,  without  his  gesticulation  of  eye  and  mouth,  — 
and  especially  the  flourish  of  the  whip,  with  which  he  imagined  him- 
self touching  up  a  pair  of  fat  horses,  —  I  doubt  whether  his  words 
would  be  worth  recording,  even  if  I  could  remember  them.  The  gist 
of  the  reply  was,  that  he  accepted  the  whip  as  an  emblem  of  peace, 
not  punishment ;  and,  this  great  affair  over,  we  retired  out  of  the 
presence  in  high  good-humor,  only  regretting  that  we  could  not  have 
seen  the  President  sit  down  and  fold  up  his  legs  (which  is  said  to  be 
a  most  extraordinary  spectacle),  or  have  heard  him  tell  one  of  those 
delectable  stories  for  which  he  is  so  celebrated.  A  good  many 
of  them  are  afloat  upon  the  common  talk  of  Washington,  and  are 
certainly  the  aptest,  pithiest,  and  funniest  little  things  imaginable ; 
though,  to  be  sure,  they  smack  of  the  frontier  freedom,  and  would 
not  always  bear  repetition  in  a  drawing-room,  or  on  the  immaculate 
page  of  the  Atlantic." 

So  runs  the  passage  which  caused  some  good-natured 
discussion  nine  years  ago,  between  the  contributor  and 
the  editor.  Perhaps  I  was  squeamish  not  to  have  been 
willing  to  print  this  matter  at  that  time.  Some  persons, 
no  doubt,  will  adopt  that  opinion,  but  as  both  President 
and  author  have  long  ago  met  on  the  other  side  of  criti- 
cism and  magazines,  we  will  leave  the  subject  to  their 
decision,  they  being  most  interested  in  the  transaction. 
I  did  what  seemed  best  in  1862.  In  1871  "circum- 
stances have  changed  "  with  both  parties,  and  I  venture 
to-day  what  I  hardly  dared  then. 


Whenever  I  look  at  Hawthorne's  portrait,  and  that  is 
pretty  often,  some  new  trait  or  anecdote  or  reminis- 
cence comes  up  and  clamors  to  be  made  known  to  those 
who  feel  an  interest  in  it.  But  time  and  eternity  call 
loudly  for  mortal  gossip  to  be  brief,  and  I  must  hasten  to 
my  last  session  over  that  child  of  genius,  who  first  saw 
the  light  on  the  4th  of  July,  1804. 

One  of  his  favorite  books  was  Lockhart's  Life  of  Sir 


102  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Walter  Scott,  and  in  1862  I  dedicated  to  him  the 
Household  Edition  of  that  work.  When  he  received  the 
first  volume,  he  wrote  to  me  a  letter  of  which  I  am  so 
proud  that  I  keep  it  among  my  best  treasures. 

"  I  am  exceedingly  gratified  by  the  dedication.  I  do  not  deserve 
so  high  an  honor  ;  but  ifyou  think  me  worthy,  it  is  enough  to  make 
the  compliment  in  the  highest  degree  acceptable,  no  matter  who 
may  dispute  my  title  to  it.  I  care  more  for  your  good  opinion 
than  for  that  of  a  host  of  critics,  and  have  an  excellent  reason  for 
so  doing ;  inasmuch  as  my  literary  success,  whatever  it  has  been 
or  may  be,  is  the  result  of  my  connection  with  you.  Somehow  or 
other  you  smote  the  rock  of  public  sympathy  on  mjr  behalf,  and  a 
stream  gushed  forth  in  sufficient  quantity  to  quench  my  thirst 
though  not  to  drown  me.  I  think  no  author  can  ever  have  had 
publisher  that  he  valued  so  much  as  I  do  mine." 

He  began  in  1862  to  send  me  some  articles  from  his 
English  Journal  for  the  Atlantic  magazine,  which  he 
afterwards  collected  into  a  volume  and  called  "  Our  Old 
Home."  On  forwarding  one  for  December  of  that  year 
he  says : — 

"  I  hope  you  will  like  it,  for  the  subject  seemed  interesting  to  me 
when  I  was  on  the  spot,  but  I  always  feel  a  singular  despondency 
and  heaviness  of  heart  in  reopening  those  old  journals  now.  How- 
ever, if  I  can  make  readable  sketches  out  of  them,  it  is  no  matter." 

In  the  same  letter  he  tells  me  he  has  been  re-reading 
Scott's  Life,  and  he  suggests  some  additions  to  the  con- 
cluding volume.     He  says :  — 

"  If  the  last  volume  is  not  already  printed  and  stereotyped,  I 
think  you  ought  to  insert  in  it  an  explanation  of  all  that  is  left 
mysterious  in  the  former  volumes,  —  the  name  and  family  of  the  lady 
he  was  in  love  with,  etc.  It  is  desirable,  too,  to  know  what  have 
been  the  fortunes  and  final  catastrophes  of  his  family  and  intimate 
friends  since  his  death,  down  to  as  recent  a  period  as  the  death  of 
Lockhart.  All  such  matter  would  make  your  edition  more  valuable ; 
and  I  see  no  reason  why  you  should  be  bound  by  the  deference  to 
living  connections  of  the  family  that  may  prevent  the  English  pub- 
lishers from  inserting  these  particulars.     We  stand  in  the  light  of 


HA  WTHORNE.  103 

posterity  to  them,  and  have   the   privileges  of  posterity I 

should  be  glad  to  know  something  of  the  personal  character  and  life 
of  his  eldest  son,  and  whether  (as  I  have  heard)  he  was  ashamed  of 
his  father  for  being  a  literary  man.  In  short,  fifty  pages  devoted  to 
such  elucidation  would  make  the  edition  unique.  Do  come  and  see 
us  before  the  leaves  fall." 

While  he  was  engaged  in  copying  out  and  rewriting  his 
papers  on  England  for  the  magazine  he  was  despondent 
about  their  reception  by  the  public.  Speaking  of  them, 
one  day,  to  me,  he  said:  "We  must  remember  that  there 
is  a  good  deal  of  intellectual  ice  mingled  with  this  wine 
of  memory."  He  was  sometimes  so  dispirited  during  the 
war  that  he  was  obliged  to  postpone  his  contributions  for 
sheer  lack  of  spirit  to  go  on.  Near  the  close  of  the  year 
1862  he  writes  :  — 

"  I  am  delighted  at  what  you  tell  me  about  the  kind  appreciation 
of  my  articles,  for  I  feel  rather  gloomy  about  them  myself.  I  am 
really  much  encouraged  by  what  you  say  ;  not  but  what  I  am  sensi- 
ble that  you  mollify  me  with  a  good  deal  of  soft  soap,  but  it  is  skil- 
fully applied  and  effects  all  you  intend  it  should I  cannot  come 

to  Boston  to  spend  more  than  a  day,  just  at  present.  It  would  suit 
me  better  to  come  for  a  visit  when  the  spring  of  next  year  is  a  little 
advanced,  and  if  you  renew  your  hospitable  proposition  then,  I 
shall  probably  be  glad  to  accept  it ;  though  I  have  now  been  a 
hermit  so  long,  that  the  thought  affects  me  somewhat  as  it  would  to 
invite  a  lobster  or  a  crab  to  step  out  of  his  shell." 

He  continued,  during  the  early  months  of  1863,  to 
send  now  and  then  an  article  for  the  magazine  from 
his  English  Note-Books.  On  the  22d  of  February  he 
writes  :  — 

"  Here  is  another  article.  I  wish  it  would  not  be  so  wretchedly 
long,  but  there  are  many  things  which  I  shall  find  no  opportu- 
nity to  say  unless  I  say  them  now ;  so  the  article  grows  under  my 
hand,  and  one  part  of  it  seems  just  about  as  well  worth  printing  as 
another.  Heaven  sees  fit  to  visit  me  with  an  unshakable  conviction 
that  all  this  series  of  articles  is  good  for  nothing ;  but  that  is  none 
of  my  business,  provided  the  public  and  you  are  of  a  different  opin- 
ion.    If  you  think  any  part  of  it  can  be  left  out  with  advantage, 


io4  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


you  are  quite  at  liberty  to  do  so.  Probably  I  have  not  put  Leigh 
Hunt  quite  high  enough  for  your  sentiments  respecting  him ;  but  no 
more  genuine  characterization  and  criticism  (so  far  as  the  writer's 
purpose  to  be  true  goes)  was  ever  done.  It  is  very  slight.  I  might 
have  made  more  of  it,  but  should  not  have  improved  it. 

"  I  mean  to  write  two  more  of  these  articles,  and  then  hold  my 
hand.  I  intend  to  come  to  Boston  before  the  end  of  this  week,  if 
the  weather  is  good.  It  must  be  nearly  or  quite  six  months  since  I 
was  there  !  I  wonder  how  many  people  there  are  in  the  world  who 
would  keep  their  nerves  in  tolerably  good  order  through  such  a 
length  of  nearly  solitary  imprisonment  ?  " 

I  advised  him  to  begin  to  put  the  series  in  order  for 
a  volume,  and  to  preface  the  book  with  his  "  Consular 
Experiences."     On  the  18th  of  April  he  writes  :  — 

"  I  don't  think   the  public  will  bear  any  more  of  this  sort  of 

thing I  had  a  letter  from ,  the  other  day,  in  which  he 

sends  me  the  enclosed  verses,  and  I  think  he  would  like  to  have 
them  published  in  the  Atlantic.     Do  it  if  you  like,  I  pretend  to  no 

judgment  in  poetry.     He  also  sent  this  epithalamium  by  Mrs. , 

and  I  doubt  not  the  good  lady  will  be  pleased  to  see  it  copied  into 
one  of  our  American  newspapers  with  a  few  laudatory  remarks. 
Can't  you  do  it  in  the  Transcript,  and  send  her  a  copy  ?  You  can- 
not imagine  how  a  little  praise  jollifies  us  poor  authors  to  the  mar- 
row of  our  bones.  Consider,  if  you  had  not  been  a  publisher,  you 
would  certainly  have  been  one  of  our  wretched  tribe,  and  therefore 
ought  to  have  a  fellow-feeling  for  us.  Let  Michael  Angelo  write  the 
remarks,  if  you  have  not  the  time." 

("  Michael  Angelo  "  was  a  clever  little  Irish-boy  who 
had  the  care  of  my  room.  Hawthorne  conceived  a  fancy 
for  the  lad,  and  liked  to  hear  stories  of  his  smart  replies 
to  persistent  authors  who  called  during  my  absence  with 
unpromising-looking  manuscripts.)  On  the  30th  of 
April  he  writes  :  — 

"  I  send  the  article  with  which  the  volume  is  to  commence,  and 
you  can  begin  printing  it  whenever  you  like.  I  can  think  of  no 
better  title  than  this,  '  Our  Old  Home  ;  a  Series  of  English 
Sketches,  by,'  etc.  I  submit  to  your  judgment  whether  it  would 
not  be  well  to   print  these  '  Consular  Experiences '  in  the  volume 


HA  WTHORNE.  105 


without  depriving  them  of  any  freshness  they  may  have  by  previ- 
ous publication  in  the  magazine  ? 

"  The  article  has  some  of  the  features  that  attract  the  curiosity  of 
the  foolish  public,  being  made  up  of  personal  narrative  and  gossip, 
with  a  few  pungencies  of  personal  satire,  which  will  not  be  the  less 
effective  because  the  reader  can  scarcely  find  out  who  was  the  indi- 
vidual meant.  I  am  not  without  hope  of  drawing  down  upon  my- 
self a  good  deal  of  critical  severity  on  this  score,  and  would  gladly 
incur  more  of  it  if  I  could  do  so  without  seriously  deserving  (in- 
sure. 

"  The  story  of  the  Doctor  of  Divinity,  I  think,  will  prove  a  good 
card  in  this  way.  It  is  every  bit  true  (like  the  other  anecdotes),  only 
not  told  so  darkly  as  it  might  have  been  for  the  reverend  gentleman. 
I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  clanger  of  his  identity  being  ascertained, 
and  do  not  care  whether  it  is  or  no,  as  it  could  only  be  done  by  the 
impertinent  researches  of  other  people.  It  seems  to  me  quite  essen- 
tial to  have  some  novelty  in  the  collected  volume,  and,  if  possible, 
something  that  may  excite  a  little  discussion  and  remark.  But  de- 
cide for  yourself  and  me;  and  if  you  conclude  not  to  publish  it  in 
the  magazine,  I  think  I  can  concoct  another  article  in  season  for  the 
August  number,  if  you  wish.  After  the  publication  of  the  volume, 
it  seems  to  me  the  public  had  better  have  no  more  of  them. 

"  J has  been  telling  us  a  mythical  story  of  your  intending  to 

walk  with  him  from  Cambridge  to  Concord.  We  should  be  delighted 
to  see  you,  though  more  for  our  own  sakes  than  yours,  for  our  as- 
pect here  is  still  a  little  winterish.  When  you  come,  let  it  be  on 
Saturday,  and  stay  till  Monday.     I  am  hungry  to  talk  with  you." 

I  was  enchanted,  of  course,  with  the  "  Consular  Expe- 
riences," and  find  from  his  letters,  written  at  that  time, 
that  he  was  made  specially  happy  by  the  encomiums  I 
could  not  help  sending  upon  that  inimitable  sketch. 
When  the  "  Old  Home  "  was  nearly  all  in  type,  he  began 
to  think  about  a  dedication  to  the  book.  On  the  3d  of 
May  he  writes  :  — 

"  I  am  of  three  minds  about  dedicating  the  volume.  First,  it 
seems  due  to  Frank  Pierce  (as  he  put  me  into  the  position  where  I 
made  all  those  profound  observations  of  English  scenery,  life,  and 
character)  to  inscribe  it  to  him  with  a  few  pages  of  friendly  and  ex- 
planatory talk,  which  also  would  be  very  gratifying  to  my  own  life- 
long affection  for  him. 
5* 


106  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

"  Secondly,  I  want  to  say  something  to  Bennoch  to  show  him 
that  I  am  thoroughly  mindful  of  all  his  hospitality  and  kindness ; 
and  I  suppose  he  might  be  pleased  to  see  his  name  at  the  head  of  a 
book  of  mine. 

"  Thirdly,  I  am  not  convinced  that  it  is  worth  while  to  inscribe  it 
..to  anybody.     We  will  see  hereafter." 

The  book  moved  on  slowly  through  the  press,  and  he 
•seemed  more  than  commonly  nervous  about  the  proof- 
sheets.     On  the  28th  of  May  he  says  in  a  note  to  me :  — 

"In  a  proof-sheet  of  'Our  Old  Home'  which  I  sent  you  to-day 
(page  43,  or  4,  or  5  or  thereabout)  I  corrected  a  line  thus, '  possessing 
.a  happy  faculty  of  seeing  my  own  interest.'  Now  as  the  public  in- 
terest was  my  sole  and  individual  object  while  I  held  office,  I  think 
that  as  a  matter  of  scanty  justice  to  myself,  the  line  ought  to  stand 
thus,  '  possessing  a  happy  faculty  of  seeing  my  own  interest  and  the 
public's.'  Even  then,  you  see,  I  only  give  myself  credit  for  half  the 
disinterestedness  I  really  felt.  Pray,  by  all  means,  have  it  altered  as 
above,  even  if  the  page  is  stereotyped ;  which  it  can't  have  been,  as 
the  proof  is  now  in  the  Concord  post-office,  and  you  will  have  it  at 
the  same  time  with  this. 

"  We  are   getting  into  full  leaf  here,  and  your  walk  with  J 

might  come  off  any  time." 

An  arrangement  was  made  with  the  liberal  house  of 
Smith  and  Elder,  of  London,  to  bring  out  "Our  Old 
Home "  on  the  same  day  of  its  publication  in  Boston. 
On  the  1st  of  July  Hawthorne  wrote  to  me  from  the 
Wayside  as  follows :  — 

"I  am  delighted  with  Smith  and  Elder,  or  rather  with  you;  for 
iit  is  you  that  squeeze  the  English  sovereigns  out  of  the  poor  devils. 
'On  my  own  behalf  I  never  could  have  thought  of  asking  more  than 
£50,  and  should  hardly  have  expected  to  get  £10;  I  look  upon 
the  £  180  as  the  only  trustworthy  funds  I  have,  our  own  money 
being  of  such  a  gaseous  consistency.  By  the  time  I  can  draw  for 
it,  I  expect  it  will  be  worth  at  least  fifteen  hundred  dollars. 

"  I  shall  think  over  the  prefatory  matter  for  '  Our  Old  Home  '  to- 
day, and  will  write  it  to-morrow.  It  requires  some  little  thought 
and  policy  in  order  to  say  nothing  amiss  at  this  time ;  for  I  intend 
to  dedicate  the  book  to  Frank  Pierce,  come  what  may.  It  shall 
reach  you  on  Friday  morning. 


HAWTHORNE.  107 


"  We  find  a  comfortable  and   desirable  guest  to  have    in 

the  house.  My  wife  likes  her  hugely,  and  for  my  part,  I  had  no 
idea  that  there  was  such  a  sensible  woman  of  letters  in  the 
world.  She  is  just  as  healthy-minded  as  if  she  had  never  touched 
a  pen.  I  am  glad  she  had  a  pleasant  time,  and  hope  she  will  come 
back. 

"  I  mean  to  come  to  Boston  whenever  I  can  be  sure  of  a  cool 
day. 

'•  What  a  prodigious  length  of  time  you  stayed  among  the  moun- 
tains ! 

"  You  ought  not  to  assume  such  liberties  of  absence  without  the 
consent  of  your  friends,  which  I  hardly  think  you  would  get.  I,  at 
least,  want  you  always  within  attainable  distance,  even  though  I 
never  see  you.  Why  can't  you  come  and  stay  a  day  or  two  with 
us,  and  drink  some  spruce  beer?  " 

Those  were  troublous  days,  full  of  war  gloom  and 
general  despondency.  The  North  was  naturally  suspi- 
cious of  all  public  men,  who  did  not  bear  a  conspicuous 
part  in  helping  to  put  down  the  Eebellion.  General 
Pierce  had  been  President  of  the  United  States,  and  was 
not  identified,  to  say  the  least,  with  the  great  party  which 
favored  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war.  Hawthorne 
proposed  to  dedicate  his  new  book  to  a  very  dear  friend, 
indeed,  but  in  doing  so  he  would  draw  public  attention  in 
a  marked  way  to  an  unpopular  name.  Several  of  Haw- 
thorne's friends,  on  learning  that  he  intended  to  inscribe 
his  book  to  Franklin  Pierce,  came  to  me  and  begged  that 
I  would,  if  possible,  help  Hawthorne  to  see  that  he  ought 
not  to  do  anything  to  jeopardize  the  currency  of  his  new 
volume.  Accordingly  I  wrote  to  him,  just  what  many 
of  his  friends  had  said  to  me,  and  this  is  his  reply  to  my 
letter,  which  bears  date  the  18th  of  July,  1863  :  — 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  note  of  the  15th  instant,  and  have  delayed 
my  reply  thus  long  in  order  to  ponder  deeply  on  your  advice, 
smoke  cigars  over  it,  and  see  what  it  might  be  possible  for  me  to 
do  towards  taking  it.  I  fmd  that  it  would  be  a  piece  of  poltroonery 
in  me  to  withdraw  either  the  dedication  or  the  dedicatory  letter. 
My  long  and  intimate  personal  relations  with  Pierce  render  the 


108  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

dedication  altogether  proper,  especially  as  regards  this  book,  which 
would  have  had  no  existence  without  his  kindness  ;  and  if  he  is  so 
exceedingly  unpopular  that  his  name  is  enough  to  sink  the  volume, 
there  is  so  much  the  more  need  that  an  old  friend  should  stand  by 
him.  I  cannot,  merely  on  account  of  pecuniary  profit  or  literary 
reputation,  go  back  from  what  I  have  deliberately  felt  and  thought 
it  right  to  do ;  and  if  I  were  to  tear  out  the  dedication,  I  should 
never  look  at  the  volume  again  without  remorse  and  shame.  As 
for  the  literary  public,  it  must  accept  my  book  precisely  as  I  think 
fit  to  give  it,  or  let  it  alone. 

"  Nevertheless,  I  have  no  fancy  for  making  myself  a  martyr  when 
it  is  honorably  and  conscientiously  possible  to  avoid  it ;  and  I  al- 
ways measure  out  my  heroism  very  accurately  according  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  occasion,  and  should  be  the  last  man  in  the  world 
to  throw  away  a  bit  of  it  needlessly.  So  I  have  looked  over  the 
concluding  paragraph  and  have  amended  it  in  such  a  way  that, 
while  doing  what  I  know  to  be  justice  to  my  friend,  it  contains  not 
a  word  that  ought  to  be  objectionable  to  any  set  of  readers.  If  the 
public  of  the  North  see  fit  to  ostracize  me  for  this,  I  can  only  say 
that  I  would  gladly  sacrifice  a  thousand  or  two  of  dollars  rather 
than  retain  the  good-will  of  such  a  herd  of  dolts  and  mean-spirited 
scoundrels.  I  enclose  the  rewritten  paragraph,  and  shall  wish  to 
see  a  proof  of  that  and  the  whole  dedication. 

"  I  had  a  call  from  an  Englishman  yesterday,  and  kept  him  to 

dinner;  not  the  threatened  ,  but  a  Mr. ,  introduced  by 

.     He  says  he  knows  you,  and  he  seems  to  be  a  very  good 

fellow.     1  have  strong  hopes  that  he  will  never  come  back  here 

again,  for  J took  him  on  a  walk  of  several  miles,  whereby  they 

both  caught  a  most  tremendous  ducking,  and  the  poor  Englishman 

was  frightened  half  to  death  by  the  thunder On  the  other 

page  is  the  list  of  presentation  people,  and  it  amounts  to  twenty-four, 
which  your  liberality  and  kindness  allow  me.  As  likely  as  not  I 
have  forgotten  two  or  three,  and  I  held  my  pen  suspended  over  one 
or  two  of  the  names,  doubting  whether  they  deserved  of  me  so 
especial  a  favor  as  a  portion  of  my  heart  and  brain.  I  have  few 
friends.  Some  authors,  I  should  think,  would  require  half  the  edi- 
tion for  private  distribution." 

"  Our  Old  Home  "  was  published  in  the  autumn  of 
1863,  and  although  it  was  everywhere  welcomed,  in 
England  the  strictures  were  applied  with  a  liberal  hand 
On  the  18th  of  October  he  writes  to  me :  — 


HAWTHORNE.  109 


"  You  sent  me  the  '  Eeader '  with  a  notice  of  the  book,  and  I 
have  received  one  or  two  others,  one  of  them  from  Bennoch.  The 
English  critics  seem  to  think  me  very  bitter  against  their  country- 
men, and  it  is,  perhaps,  natural  that  they  should,  because  their  self- 
conceit  can  accept  nothing  short  of  indiscriminate  adulation  ;  but  I 
really  think  that  Americans  have  more  cause  than  they  to  complain 
of  me.  Looking  over  the  volume,  I  am  rather  surprised  to  find 
that  whenever  I  draw  a  comparison  between  the  two  people,  I 
almost  invariably  cast  the  balance  against  ourselves.  It  is  not  a 
good  nor  a  weighty  book,  nor  does  it  deserve  any  great  amount 
either  of  praise  or  censure.  I  don't  care  about  seeing  any  more 
notices  of  it." 

Meantime  the  "  Dolliver  Romance,"  which  had  been 
laid  aside  on  account  of  the  exciting  scenes  through 
which  we  were  then  passing,  and  which  unfitted  him  for 
the  composition  of  a  work  of  the  imagination,  made  lit- 
tle progress.  In  a  note  written  to  me  at  this  time  he 
says : — 

"  I  can't  tell  you  when  to  expect  an  instalment  of  the  Romance, 
if  ever.  There  is  something  preternatural  in  my  reluctance  to 
begin.  I  linger  at  the  threshold,  and  have  a  perception  of  very  dis- 
agreeable phantasms  to  be  encountered  if  I  enter.  I  wish  God  had 
given  me  the  faculty  of  writing  a  sunshiny  book." 

I  invited  him  to  come  to  Boston  and  have  a  cheerful 
week  among  his  old  friends,  and  threw  in  as  an  in- 
ducement a  hint  that  he  should  hear  the  great  organ  in 
the  Music  Hall.  I  also  suggested  that  we  could  talk 
over  the  new  Romance  together,  if  he  would  gladden  us 
all  by  coming  to  the  city.  Instead  of  coming,  he  sent 
this  reply :  — 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  invitation  to  hear  the  grand  instru- 
ment ;  but  it  offers  me  no  inducement  additional  to  what  I  should 
always  have  for  a  visit  to  your  abode.  I  have  no  ear  for  an  organ 
or  a  jewsharp,  nor  for  any  instrument  between  the  two  ;  so  you 
had  better  invite  a  worthier  guest,  and  I  will  come  another  time 

"  I  don't  see  much  probability  of  my  having  the  first  chapter  of 
the  Romance  ready  so  soon  as  you  want  it.     There  are  twc  or 


no  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

three  chapters  ready  to  be  written,  but  I  am  not  yet  robust  enough 
to  begin,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  should  never  carry  it  through. 

"  Besides,  I  want  to  prefix  a  little  sketch  of  Thoreau  to  it,  be- 
cause, from  a  tradition  which  he  told  me  about  this  house  of  mine, 
I  got  the  idea  of  a  deathless  man,  which  is  now  taking  a  shape  very 
different  from  the  original  one.  It  seems  the  duty  of  a  live  literary 
man  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  a  dead  one,  when  there  is  such 
fair  opportunity  as  in  this  case :  but  how  Thoreau  would  scorn  me 
for  thinking  that  I  could  perpetuate  him!     And  I  don't  think  so. 

"  I  can  think  of  no  title  for  the  unborn  Romance.  Always  here- 
tofore I  have  waited  till  it  was  quite  complete  before  attempting  to 
name  it,  and  I  fear  I  shall  have  to  do  so  now.  I  wish  you  or  Mrs. 
Fields  would  suggest  one.  Perhaps  you  may  snatch  a  title  out  of 
the  infinite  void  that  will  miraculously  suit  the  book,  and  give  me  a 
needful  impetus  to  write  it. 

"  I  want  a  great  deal  of  money I  wonder  how  people 

manage  to  live  economically.  I  seem  to  spend  little  or  nothing, 
and  yet  it  will  get  very  far  beyond  the  second  thousand,  for  the 
present  year If  it  were  not  for  these  troublesome  neces- 
sities, I  doubt  whether  you  would  ever  see  so  much  as  the  first 
chapter  of  the  new  Romance. 

"  Those  verses  entitled  '  Weariness,'  in  the  last  magazine,  seem 
to  me  profoundly  touching.  I  too  am  weary,  and  begin  to  look 
ahead  for  the  Wayside  Inn." 

I  had  frequent  accounts  of  his  ill  health  and  changed 
appearance,  but  I  supposed  he  would  rally  again  soon, 
and  become  hale  and  strong  before  the  winter  fairly  set 
in.  But  the  shadows  even  then  were  about  his  pathway, 
and  Allan  Cunningham's  lines,  which  he  once  quoted  to 
me,  must  often  have  occurred  to  him,  — 

"  Cauld  's  the  snaw  at  my  head, 
And  cauld  at  my  feet, 
And  the  finger  o'  death  's  at  my  een, 
Closing  them  to  sleep." 

We  had  arranged  together  that  the  "  Dolliver  ."Ro- 
mance "  should  be  first  published  in  the  magazine,  in 
monthly  instalments,  and  we  decided  to  begin  in  the 
January  number  of  1864.  On  the  8th  of  November 
came  a  long  letter  from  him :  — 


HA  WTHOENE.  1 1 1 


"  I  foresee  that  there  is  little  probability  of  my  getting  the  first 
chapter  ready  by  the  15th,  although  I  have  a  resolute  purpose  to 
write  it  by  the  end  of  the  month.  It  will  be  in  time  for  the  Feb- 
ruary number,  if  it  turns  out  fit  for  publication  at  all.  As  to  the 
title,  we  must  defer  settling  that  till  the  book  is  fully  written,  and 
meanwhile  I  see  nothing  better  than  to  call  the  series  of  articles 
'  Fragments  of  a  Romance.'  This  will  leave  me  to  exercise  greater 
freedom  as  to  the  mechanism  of  the  story  than  I  otherwise  can, 
and  without  which  I  shall  probably  get  entangled  in  my  own  plot. 
When  the  work  is  completed  in  the  magazine,  I  can  fill  up  the  gaps 
and  make  straight  the  crookednesses,  and  christen  it  with  a  fresh 
title.  In  this  untried  experiment  of  a  serial  work  I  desire  not  to 
pledge  myself,  or  promise  the  public  more  than  I  may  confidently 
expect  to  achieve.  As  regards  the  sketch  of  Thoreau,  I  am  not 
ready  to  write  it  yet,  but  will  mix  him  up  with  the  life  of  The 
Wayside,  and  produce  an  autobiographical  preface  for  the  finished 
Romance.  If  the  public  like  that  sort  of  stuff,  I  too  find  it  pleasant 
and  easy  writing,  ami  ran  supply  a  new  chapter  of  it  for  every  new 
volume,  and  that,  moreover,  without  infringing  upon  my  proper 
privacy.  An  old  Quaker  wrote  me,  the  other  day,  that  he  had 
been  reading  my  Introduction  to  the  'Mosse^.'  and  the  'Scarlet 
Letter,'  and  felt  as  if  he  knew  me  better  than  his  best  friend ;  but 
1  think  he  considerably  overestimates  the  extent  of  his  intimacy 
with  me. 

"  I  received  several  private  letters  and  printed  notices  of  '  Our  Old 
Home  '  from  England.  It  is  laughable  to  see  the  innocent  wonder 
with  which  they  regard  my  criticisms,  accounting  for  them  by  jaun- 
dice, insanity,  jealousy,  hatred,  on  my  part,  and  never  admitting  the 
least  suspicion  that  there  may  be  a  particle  of  truth  in  them.  The 
monstrosity  of  their  self-conceit  is  such  that  anything  short  of 
unlimited  admiration  impresses  them  as  malicious  caricature.  But 
they  do  me  great  injustice  in  supposing  that  I  hate  them.  I  would 
as  soon  hate  my  own  people. 

"  Tell  Ticknor  that  I  want  a  hundred  dollars  more,  and  I  sup- 
pose I  shall  keep  on  wanting  more  and  more  till  the  end  of  my  days. 
If  I  subside  into  the  almshouse  before  my  intellectual  faculties  are 
quite  extinguished,  it  strikes  me  that  I  would  make  a  very  pretty 
book  out  of  it ;  and,  seriously,  if  I  alone  were  concerned,  I  should 
not  have  any  great  objection  to  winding  up  there." 

On  the  14th  of  November  came  a  pleasant  little  note 
from  him,  which  seemed  to  have  been  written  in  better 


ii2  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

spirits  than  he  had  shown  of  late.  Photographs  of  him- 
self always  amused  him  greatly,  and  in  the  little  note  I 
refer  to  there  is  this  pleasant  passage  :  — 

"Here  is  the  photograph,  —  a  grandfatherly  old  figure  enough; 
and  I  suppose  that  is  the  reason  why  you  select  it. 

"  I  am  much  in  want  of  cartes  de  visite  to  distribute  on  my  own 
account,  and  am  tired  and  disgusted  with  all  the  undesirable  like- 
nesses as  yet  presented  of  me.  Don't  you  think  I  might  sell  my 
head  to  some  photographer  who  would  be  willing  to  return  me 
the  value  in  small  change ;  that  is  to  say,  in  a  dozen  or  two  of 
cards '?  " 

The  first  part  of  Chapter  I.  of  "The  Dolliver  Ro- 
mance "  came  to  me  from  the  Wayside  on  the  1st  of 
December.  Hawthorne  was  very  anxious  to  see  it  in 
type  as  soon  as  possible,  in  order  that  he  might  compose 
the  rest  in  a  similar  strain,  and  so  conclude  the  prelimi- 
nary phase  of  Dr.  Dolliver.  He  was  constantly  imploring 
me  to  send  him  a  good  pen,  complaining  all  the  while 
that  everything  had  failed  him  in  that  line.  In  one  of 
his  notes  begging  me  to  hunt  him  up  something  that  he 
could  write  with,  he  says  :  — 

"  Nobody  ever  suffered  more  from  pens  than  I  have,  and  I  am 
glad  that  my  labor  with  the  abominable  little  tool  is  drawing  to  a 
close." 

In  the  month  of  December  Hawthorne  attended  the 
funeral  of  Mrs.  Franklin  Pierce,  and,  after  the  ceremony, 
came  to  stay  with  us.  He  seemed  ill  and  more  nervous 
than  usual.  He  said  he  found  General  Pierce  greatly 
needing  his  companionship,  for  he  was  overwhelmed  with 
grief  at  the  loss  of  his  wife.  I  well  remember  the  sad- 
ness of  Hawthorne's  face  when  he  told  us  he  felt  obliged 
to  look  on  the  dead.  "  It  was,"  said  he,  "  like  a  carven 
image  laid  in  its  richly  embossed  enclosure,  and  there 
was  a  remote  expression  about  it  as  if  the  whole  had 
nothing  to  do  with  things  present."  He  told  us,  as  an* 
instance  of  the  ever-constant  courtesy  of  his  friend  Gen- 


HAWTHORNE.  113 


eral  Pierce,  that  while  they  were  standing  at  the  grave, 
the  General,  though  completely  overcome  with  his  own 
sorrow,  turned  and  drew  up  the  collar  of  Hawthorne's  coat 
to  shield  him  from  the  bitter  cold. 

The  same  day,  as  the  sunset  deepened  and  we  sat  to- 
gether, Hawthorne  began  to  talk  in  an  autobiographical 
vein,  and  gave  us  the  story  of  his  early  life,  of  which  I 
have  already  written  somewhat.  He  said  at  an  early 
age  he  accompanied  his  mother  and  sister  to  the  town- 
ship in  Maine,  which  his  grandfather  had  purchased. 
That,  he  continued,  was  the  happiest  period  of  his  life, 
and  it  lasted  through  several  years,  when  he  was  sent  to 
school  in  Salem.  "  I  lived  in  Maine,"  lie  said,  "  like  a 
bird  of  the  air,  so  perfect  was  the  freedom  I  enjoyed. 
But  it  was  there  I  first  got  my  cursed  habits  of  solitude." 
During  the  moonlight  nights  of  winter  he  would  skate 
until  midnight  all  alone  upon  Sebago  Lake,  with  the 
deep  shadows  of  the  icy  hills  on  either  hand.  When  he 
found  himself  far  away  from  his  home  and  weary  with 
the  exertion  of  skating,  he  would  sometimes  take  refuge 
in  a  log-cabin,  where  half  a  tree  would  be  burning  on  the 
broad  hearth.  He  would  sit  in  the  ample  chimney  and 
look  at  the  stars  through  the  great  aperture  through 
which  the  flames  went  roaring  up.  "  Ah,"  he  said,  ''  how 
well  I  recall  the  summer  days  also,  when,  with  my  gun, 
I  roamed  at  will  through  the  woods  of  Maine.  How  sad 
middle  life  looks  to  people  of  erratic  temperaments. 
Everything  is  beautiful  in  youth,  for  all  things  are  allowed 
to  it  then." 

The  early  home  of  the  Hawthornes  in  Maine  must 
have  been  a  lonely  dwelling-place  indeed.  A  year  ago 
(May  12,  1870)  the  old  place  was  visited  by  one  who  had 
a  true  feeling  for  Hawthorne's  genius,  and  who  thus 
graphically  described  the  spot. 

"  A  little  way  off  the  main-travelled  road  in  the  town  of  Ray- 


H 


H4  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

mond  there  stood  an  old  house  which  has  much  in  common  witi 
houses  of  its  day,  but  which  is  distinguished  from  them  by  the 
more  evident  marks  of  neglect  and  decay.  Its  unpainted  walls  are 
deeply  stained  by  time.  Cornice  and  window-ledge  and  threshold 
are  fast  falling  with  the  weight  of  years.  The  fences  were  long 
since  removed  from  all  the  enclosures,  the  garden- wall  is  broken 
down,  and  the  garden  itself  is  now  grown  up  to  pines  whose 
shadows  fall  dark  and  heavy  upon  the  old  and  mossy  roof;  fitting 
roof-trees  for  such  a  mansion,  planted  there  by  the  hands  of  Nature 
herself,  as  if  she  could  not  realize  that  her  darling  child  was  ever  to 
go  out  from  his  early  home.  The  highway  once  passed  its  door, 
but  the  location  of  the  road  has  been  changed  ;  and  now  the  old 
house  stands  solitarily  apart  from  the  busy  world.  Longer  than  I 
can  remember,  and  I  have  never  learned  how  long,  this  house  has 
stood  untenanted  and  wholly  unused,  except,  for  a  few  years,  as  a 
place  of  public  worship ;  but,  for  myself,  and  for  all  who  know  its 
earlier  history,  it  will  ever  have  the  deepest  interest,  for  it  was  the 
early  home  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

"  Often  have  I,  when  passing  through  that  town,  turned  aside 
to  study  the  features  of  that  landscape,  and  to  reflect  upon  the 
influence  which  his  surroundings  had  upon  the  development  of  this 
author's  genius.  A  few  rods  to  the  north  runs  a  little  mill-stream, 
its  sloping  bank  once  covered  with  grass,  now  so  worn  and  washed 
by  the  rains  as  to  show  but  little  except  yellow  sand.  Less  than 
half  a  mile  to  the  west,  this  stream  empties  into  an  arm  of  Sebago 
Lake.  Doubtless,  at  the  time  the  house  was  built,  the  forest  was 
so  much  cut  away  in  that  direction  as  to  bring  into  view  the 
waters  of  the  lake,  for  a  mill  was  built  upon  the  brook  about  half- 
way down  the  valley,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  clearing 
was  made  from  the  mill  to  the  landing  upon  the  shore  of  the  pond  ; 
but  the  pines  have  so  far  regained  their  old  dominion  as  completely 
to  shut  out  the  whole  prospect  in  that  direction.  Indeed,  the  site 
affords  but  a  limited  survey,  except  to  the  northwest.  Across  a 
narrow  valley  in  that  direction  lie  open  fields  and  dark  pine-covered 
slopes.  Beyond  these  rise  long  ranges  of  forest-crowned  hills,  while 
in  the  far  distance  every  hue  of  rock  and  tree,  of  field  and  grove,  melts 
into  the  soft  blue  of  Mount  Washington.  The  spot  must  ever  have 
had  the  utter  loneliness  of  the  pine  forests  upon  the  borders  of  our 
northern  lakes.  The  deep  silence  and  dark  shadows  of  the  old 
woods  must  have  filled  the  imagination  of  a  youth  possessing 
Hawthorne's  sensibility  with  images  which  later  years  could  not 
dispel 


HAWTHORNE.  115 


"  To  this  place  came  the  widowed  mother  of  Hawthorne  in  com- 
pany with  her  brother,  an  original  proprietor  and  one  of  the  early 
settlers  of  the  town  of  Raymond.  This  house  was  built  for  her, 
and  here  she  lived  with  her  son  for  several  years  in  the  most  com- 
plete seclusion.  Perhaps  she  strove  to  conceal  here  a  grief  which 
she  could  not  forget.  In  what  way,  and  to  what  extent,  the  sur- 
roundings of  his  boyhood  operated  in  moulding  the  character  and 
developing  the  genius  of  that  gifted  author,  I  leave  to  the  reader  to 
determine.  I  have  tried  simply  to  draw  a  faithful  picture  of  his 
early  home." 

On  the  15th  of  December  Hawthorne  wrote  to  me  :  — 

"  I  have  not  yet  had  courage  to  read  the  Dolliver  proof-sheet, 
but  will  set  about  it  soon,  though  with  terrible  reluctance,  such  as  I 

never  felt  before I  am  most  grateful  to  you  for  protecting 

me  from  that  visitation  of  the  elephant  and  his  cub.     If  you  happen 

to  see  Mr. of  L ,  a  young  man  who  was  here  last  summer, 

pray  tell  him  anything  that  your  conscience  will  let  you,  to  induce 
him  to  spare  me  another  visit,  which  I  know  he  intended.  I  really 
am  not  well  and  cannot  be  disturbed  by  strangers  without  more 

Buffering  than  it  is  worth  while  to  endure.     I  thank  Mrs.  F 

and  yourself  for  your  kind  hospitality,  past  and  prospective.  I 
never  come  to  see  you  without  feeling  the  better  for  it,  but  I  must 
not  test  so  precious  a  remedy  too  often." 

The  new  year  found  him  incapacitated  from  writing 
much  on  the  Eomance.     On  the  17th  of  January,  1864, 

he  says  :  — 

"  I  am  not  quite  up  to  writing  yet,  but  shall  make  an  effort  as  soon 
as  I  see  any  hope  of  success.  You  ought  to  be  thankful  that  (like 
most  other  broken-down  authors)  I  do  not  pester  you  with  decrepit 
pages,  and  insist  upon  your  accepting  them  as  full  of  the  old  spirit 
and  vigor.  That  trouble,  perhaps,  still  awaits  you,  after  I  shall  have 
reached  a  further  stage  of  decay.  Seriously,  my  mind  has,  for  the 
present,  lost  its  temper  and  its  fine  edge,  and  I  have  an  instinct 
that  I  had  better  keep  quiet.  Perhaps  I  shall  have  a  new  spirit  of 
vigor,  if  I  wait  quietly  for  it ;  perhaps  not." 

The  end  of  February  found  him  in  a  mood  which  is 
best  indicated  in  this  letter,  which  he  addressed  to  me  on 
tb^  25th  of  the  month :  — 

s  I  hardly  know  what  to  say  to  the  public  about  this  abortive 


n6  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Romance,  though  I  know  pretty  well  what  the  case  will  be.  I 
shall  never  finish  it.  Yet  it  is  not  quite  pleasant  for  an  author  to 
announce  himself,  or  to  be  announced,  as  finally  broken  down  as  to 
his  literary  faculty.  It  is  a  pity  that  I  let  you  put  this  work  in 
your  programme  for  the  year,  for  I  had  always  a  presentiment  that 
it  would  fail  us  at  the  pinch.  Say  to  the  public  what  you  think 
best,  and  as  little  as  possible ;  for  example  :  '  We  regret  that  Mr. 
Hawthorne's  Romance,  announced  for  this  magazine  some  months 
ago,  still  lies  upon  the  author's  writing-table,  he  having  been  inter- 
rupted in  his  labor  upon  it  by  an  impaired  state  of  health  '  ;  or, 
'  We  are  sorry  to  hear  (but  know  not  whether  the  public  will  share 
our  grief)  that  Mr.  Hawthorne  is  out  of  health  and  is  thereby  pre- 
vented, for  the  present,  from  proceeding  with  another  of  his 
promised  (or  threatened)  Romances,  intended  for  this  magazine  ' ; 
or,  '  Mr.  Hawthorne's  brain  is  addled  at  last,  and,  much  to  our 
satisfaction,  he  tells  us  that  he  cannot  possibly  go  on  with  the  Ro- 
mance announced  on  the  cover  of  the  January  magazine.  We  con- 
sider him  finally  shelved,  and  shall  take  early  occasion  to  bury  him 
under  a  heavy  article,  carefully  summing  up  his  merits  (such  as  they 
were)  and  his  demerits,  what  few  of  them  can  be  touched  upon  in 
our  limited  space  ' ;  or,  '  We  shall  commence  the  publication  of  Mr. 
Hawthorne's  Romance  as  soon  as  that  gentleman  chooses  to  for- 
ward it.  We  are  quite  at  a  loss  how  to  account  for  this  delay  in 
the  fulfilment  of  his  contract ;  especially  as  he  has  already  been 
most  liberally  paid  for  the  first  number.'  Say  anything  you  like, 
in  short,  though  I  really  don't  believe  that  the  public  will  care  what 
you  say  or  whether  you  say  anything.  If  you  choose,  you  may 
publish  the  first  chapter  as  an  insulated  fragment,  and  charge  me 
with  the  overpayment.  I  cannot  finish  it  unless  a  great  change 
comes  over  me ;  and  if  I  make  too  great  an  effort  to  do  so,  it  will 
be  my  death  ;  not  that  I  should  care  much  for  that,  if  I  could  fight 
the  battle  through  and  win  it,  thus  ending  a  life  of  much  smoulder 
and  scanty  fire  in  a  blaze  of  glory.  But  I  should  smother  myself 
in  mud  of  my  own  making.  I  mean  to  come  to  Boston  soon,  not 
for  a  week  but  for  a  single  day,  and  then  I  can  talk  about  my  sani- 
tary prospects  more  freely  than  I  choose  to  write.  I  am  not  low- 
spirited,  nor  fanciful,  nor  freakish,  but  look  what  seem  to  be  realities 
in  the  face,  and  am  ready  to  take  whatever  may  come.  If  I  could 
but  go  to  England  now,  I  think  that  the  sea  voyage  and  the  '  Old 
Home  '  might  set  me  all  right. 

"This- letter  is  for  your  own  eye,  and  I  wish  especially  that  no 
echo  of  it  may  come  back  in  your  notes  to  me. 


HAWTHORNE.  1x7 

"  P.  S      Give  my  kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  F ,  and  tell  her 

that  one  of  my  choicest  ideal  places  is  her  drawing-room,  and  there- 
fore I  seldom  visit  it." 

On  Monday,  the  28th  of  March,  Hawthorne  came  to 
town  and  made  my  house  his  first  station  on  a  journey 
to  the  South  for  health.  I  was  greatly  shocked  at  his 
invalid  appearance,  and  he  seemed  quite  deaf.  The  light 
in  his  eye  was  beautiful  as  ever,  but  his  limbs  seemed 
shrunken  and  his  usual  stalwart  vigor  utterly  gone.  He 
said  to  me  with  a  pathetic  voice,  "  Why  does  Nature  treat 
us  like  little  children  !  I  think  we  could  bear  it  all  if  we 
knew  our  fate ;  at  least  it  would  not  make  much  differ- 
ence to  me  now  what  became  of  me."  Toward  night  he 
brightened  up  a  little,  and  his  delicious  wit  flashed  out, 
at  intervals,  as  of  old  ;  but  he  was  evidently  broken  and 
dispirited  about  his  health.  Looking  out  on  the  bay  that 
was  sparkling  in  the  moonlight,  he  said  he  thought  the 
moon  rather  lost  something  of  its  charm  for  him  as  he 
grew  older.  He  spoke  with  great  delight  of  a  little  story, 
called  "  Pet  Marjorie,"  and  said  he  had  read  it  carefully 
through  twice,  every  word  of  it.  He  had  much  to  say 
about  England,  and  observed,  among  other  things,  that 
"  the  extent  over  which  her  dominions  are  spread  leads 
her  to  fancy  herself  stronger  than  she  really  is ;  but  she  is 
not  to-day  a  powerful  empire  ;  she  is  much  like  a  squash- 
vine,  which  runs  over  a  whole  garden,  but,  if  you  cut  it 
at  the  root,  it  is  at  once  destroyed."  At  breakfast,  next 
morning,  he  spoke  of  his  kind  neighbors  in  Concord,  and 
said  Alcott  was  one  of  the  most  excellent  men  he  had 
ever  known.  "  It  is  impossible  to  quarrel  with  him,  for 
he  would  take  all  your  harsh  words  like  a  saint." 

He  left  us  shortly  after  this  for  a  journey  to  Washing- 
ton, with  his  friend  Mr.  Ticknor.  The  travellers  spent 
several  days  in  New  York,  and  then  proceeded  to  Phila- 
delphia.    Hawthorne  wrote  to  me  from  the  Continental 


n8  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Hotel,  dating  his  letter  "  Saturday  evening,"  announcing 
the  severe  illness  of  his  companion.  He  did  not  seem  to 
anticipate  a  fatal  result,  "but  on  Sunday  morning  the  news 
came  that  Mr.  Ticknor  was  dead.  Hawthorne  returned 
at  once  to  Boston,  and  stayed  here  over  night.  He  was 
in  a  very  excited  and  nervous  state,  and  talked  incessantly 
of  the  sad  scenes  he  had  just  been  passing  through.  We 
sat  late  together,  conversing  of  the  friend  we  had  lost, 
and  I  am  sure  he  hardly  closed  his  eyes  that  night.  In 
the  morning  he  went  back  to  his  own  home  in  Concord. 

His  health,  from  that  time,  seemed  to  give  way  rapidly, 
and  in  the  middle  of  May  his  friend,  General  Pierce,  pro- 
posed that  they  should  go  among  the  New  Hampshire 
hills  together  and  meet  the  spring  there. 

The  first  letter  we  received  from  Mrs.  Hawthorne* 
after  her  husband's  return  to  Concord  in  April  gave  us 
great  anxiety.  It  was  dated  "  Monday  eve,"  and  here  are 
some  extracts  from  it :  — 

"  I  have  just  sent  Mr.  Hawthorne  tc  bed,  and  so  have  a  moment 
to  speak  to  you.  Generally  it  has  been  late  and  I  have  not  liked  to 
disturb  him  by  sitting  up  after  him,  and  so  I  could  not  write  since 
he  returned,  though  I  wished  very  much  to  tell  you  about  him, 
ever  since  he  came  home.  He  came  back  unlooked  for  that  day  ; 
and  when  I  heard  a  step  on  the  piazza,  I  was  lying  on  a  couch  and 
feeling  quite  indisposed.  But  as  soon  as  I  saw  him  I  was  frightened 
out  of  all  knowledge  of  myself,  —  so  haggard,  so  white,  so  deeply 

*  As  I  write  this  paragraph,  my  friend,  the  Reverend  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  puts  into  my  hand  the  following  note,  which  Hawthorne  sent 
to  him  nearly  thirty  years  ago  :  — 

54  Pinckney  Street,  Friday,  July  8, 1842. 
My  dear  Sir,  —  Though  personally  a  stranger  to  you,  I  am  about  to  request 
of  you  the  greatest  favor  which  I  can  receive  from  any  man.  I  am  to  be  mar- 
ried to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody;  and  it  is  our  mutual  desire  that  you  should  per- 
form the  ceremony.  Unless  it  should  be  decidedly  a  rainy  day,  a  carriage  will 
call  for  you  at  half  past  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon. 

Very  respectfully  yours,, 

Nath.  Hawthornb. 
Rev.  James  F.  Clarre,  Chestnut  Street. 


HAWTHORNE.  119 

scored  with  pain  and  fatigue  was  the  face,  so  much  more  ill  he 
looked  than  I  ever  saw  him  before.  He  had  walked  from  the  sta- 
tion because  he  saw  no  carriage  there,  and  his  brow  was  streaming 

with  a  perfect  rain,  so  great  had  been  the  effort  to  walk  so  far 

He  needed  much  to  get  home  to  me,  where  he  could  fling  off  all 
care  of  himself  and  give  way  to  his  feelings,  pent  up  and  kept 
back  for  so  long,  especially  since  his  watch  and  ward  of  most 
excellent,  kind  Mr.  Ticknor.     It  relieved  him  somewhat  to  break 

down  as  he  spoke  of  that  scene But  he  was  so  weak  and 

weary  lie  could  not  sit  up  much,  and  lay  on  the  couch  nearly  all  the 
time  in  a  kind  of  uneasy  somnolency,  not  wishing  to  be  read  to 
even,  not  able  to  attend  or  fix  his  thoughts  at  all.  On  Saturday  he 
unfortunately  took  cold,  and,  after  a  most  restless  night,  was  seized 
early  in  the  morning  with  a  very  bad  stiff  neck,  which  was  acutely 
painful  all  Sunday.  Sunday  night,  however,  a  compress  of  linen 
wrung  in  cold   water  cured   him,  with   belladonna.     But  he  slept 

also  most  of  this  morning He  could  as  easily  build  London 

as  go  to  the  Shakespeare  dinner.  It  tires  him  so  much  to  get 
entirely  through  his  toilet  in  the  morning,  that  he  has  to  lie  down  a 
long  time  after  it.  To-day  he  walked  out  on  the  grounds,  and 
could  not  stay  ten  minutes,  because  I  would  not  let  him  sit  down 
in  the  wind,  and  he  could  not  bear  any  longer  exercise.  He  has 
more  than  lost  all  he  gained  by  the  journey,  by  the  sad  event. 
From  being  the  nursed  and  cared  for,  —  early  to  bed  and  late  to 
rise,  — led,  as  it  were,  by  the  ever-ready  hand  of  kind  Mr.  Ticknor, 
to  become  the  nurse  and  night-watcher  with  all  the  responsibilities, 
with  his  mighty  power  of  sympathy  and  his  vast  apprehension  of 
suffering  in  others,  and  to  see  death  for  the  first  time  in  a  state  so 
weak  as  his,  — the  death  also  of  so  valued  a  friend,  —  as  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne says  himself,  '  it  told  upon  him  '  fearfully.     There  are  lines 

ploughed  on  his  brow  which  never  were  there  before I  have 

been  up  and  alert  ever  since  his  return,  but  one  day  I  was  obliged, 
when  he  was  busy,  to  run  off  and  lie  down  for  fear  I  should  drop 
before  his  eyes.  My  head  was  in  such  an  agony  I  could  not  endure 
it  another  moment.  But  I  am  well  now.  I  have  wrestled  and 
won,  and  now  I  think  I  shall  not  fail  again.  Your  most  generous 
kindness  of  hospitality  I  heartily  thank  you  for,  but  Mr.  Hawthorne 
says  he  cannot  leave  home.  He  wants  rest,  and  he  says  when  the 
wind  is  warm  he  shall  feel  well.  This  cold  wind  ruins  him.  I 
wish  he  were  in  Cuba  or  on  some  isle  in  the  Gulf  Stream.  But  I 
must  say  I  could  not  think  him  able  to  go  anywhere,  unless  I  could 
go  with  him.     He  is  too  weak  to  take  care  of  himself.     I  do  not 


120  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

like  to  have  him  go  up  and  down  stairs  alone.  I  have  read  to  hire 
all  the  afternoon  and  evening  and  after  he  walked  in  the  morning 
to-day.  I  do  nothing  but  sit  with  him,  ready  to  do  or  not  to  do,  just 
as  he  wishes.  The  wheels  of  my  small  menage  are  all  stopped. 
He  is  my  world  and  all  the  business  of  it.  He  has  not  smiled 
since  he  came  home  till  to-day,  and  I  made  him  laugh  with  Thack- 
eray's humor  in  reading  to  him ;  but  a  smile  looks  strange  on  a  face 
that  once  shone  like  a  thousand  suns  with  smiles.  The  light  for 
the  time  has  gone  out  of  his  eyes,  entirely.  An  infinite  weariness 
films  them  quite.  I  thank  Heaven  that  summer  and  not  winter 
approaches." 

On  Friday  evening  of  the  same  week  Mrs.  Hawthorne 
sent  off  another  despatch  to  us  :  — 

"  Mr.  Hawthorne  has  been  miserably  ill  for  two  or  three  days,  so 
that  I  could  not  find  a  moment  to  speak  to  you.  I  am  most 
anxious  to  have  him  leave  Concord  again,  and  General  Pierce's 
plan  is  admirable,  now  that  the  General  is  well  himself.  I  think  the 
serene  jog-trot  in  a  private  carriage  into  country  places,  by  trout- 
streams  and  to  old  farm-houses,  away  from  care  and  news,  will  be 
very  restorative.  The  boy  associations  with  the  General  will 
refresh  him.  They  will  fish,  and  muse,  and  rest,  and  saunter  upon 
horses'  feet,  and  be  in  the  air  all  the  time  in  fine  weather.  I  am 
quite  content,  though  I  wish  I  could  go  for  a  few  petits  soins.  But 
General  Pierce  has  been  a  most  tender,  constant  nurse  for  many 
years,  and  knows  how  to  take  care  of  the  sick.  And  his  love  for 
Mr.  Hawthorne  is  the  strongest  passion  of  his  soul,  now  his  wife  is 
departed.  They  will  go  to  the  Isles  of  Shoals  together  probably, 
before  their  return. 

"  Mr.  Hawthorne  cannot  walk  ten  minutes  now  without  wishing 
to  sit  down,  as  I  think  I  told  you,  so  that  he  cannot  take  sufficient 
air  except  in  a  carriage.  And  his  horror  of  hotels  and  rail-cars  is 
immense,  and  human  beings  beset  him  in  cities.  He  is  indeed  very 
weak.  I  hardly  know  what  takes  away  his  strength.  I  now  am 
obliged  to  superintend  my  workman,  who  is  arranging  the  grounds. 
Whenever  my  husband  lies  down  (which  is  sadly  often)  I  rush  out 
of  doors  to  see  what  the  gardener  is  about. 

"  I  cannot  feel  rested  till  Mr.  Hawthorne  is  better,  but  I  get 
along.  I  shall  go  to  town  when  he  is  safe  in  the  care  of  General 
Pierce." 

On  Saturday  this  communication  from  Mrs.  Hawthorne 
reached  us  :  — 


HAWTHORNE.  121 


"  General  Pierce  wrote  yesterday  to  say  he  wished  to  meet  Mr. 
Hawthorne  in  Boston  on  Wednesday,  and  go  from  thence  on  their 
way. 

"  Mr.  Hawthorne  is  much  weaker.  I  find,  than  he  has  been  before 
at  any  time,  and  I  shall  go  down  with  him,  having  a  great  many 
things  to  do  in  Boston  ;  but  I  am  sure  he  is  not  fit  to  be  left  by  him- 
self, for  his  steps  are  so  uncertain,  and  his  eyes  are  very  uncertain 
too.  Dear  Mr.  Fields,  I  am  very  anxious  about  him.  and  I  write 
now  to  say  that  he  absolutely  refuses  to  see  a  physician  officially, 
and  so  I  wish  to  know  whether  Dr.  Holmes  could  not  see  him  in 
some  ingenious  way  on  Wednesday  as  a  friend;  but,  with  his  expe- 
rienced, acute  observation,  to  look  at  him  also  as  a-  physician,  to  note 
how  he  is  and  what  he  judges  of  him  comparatively  since  he  last 
saw  him.  It  almost  deprives  me  of  my  wits  to  see  him  growing 
weaker  with  no  aid.  He  seems  quite  bilious,  and  has  a  restlessness 
that  is  infinite.  His  look  is  more  distressed  and  harassed  than 
before ;  and  he  has  so  little  rest,  that  he  is  getting  worn  out.  I 
hope  immensely  in  regard  of  this  sauntering  journey  with  General 
Pierce. 

"  I  feel  as  if  I  ought  not  to  speak  to  you  of  anything  when  you 
are  so  busy  and  weary  and  bereaved.  But  yet  in  such  a  sad 
emergency  as  this,  I  am  sure  your  generous,  kind  heart  will   not 

refuse  me   any  help   you  can   render I  wish   Dr.  Holmes 

would  feel  his  pulse ;  I  do  not  know  how  to  judge  of  it,  but  it 
seems  to  me  irregular." 

His  friend,  Dr.  0.  W.  Holmes,  in  compliance  with 
Mrs.  Hawthorne's  desire,  expressed  in  this  letter  to  me, 
saw  the  invalid,  and  thus  describes  his  appearance  in  an 
article  full  of  tenderness  and  feeling  which  was  published 
in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  for  July,  1864 :  — 

"Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  before  he  left  Boston  on  his 
last  journey  I  called  upon  him  at  the  hotel  where  he  was  staying. 
He  had  gone  out  but  a  moment  before.  Looking  along  the  street,  I 
saw  a  form  at  some  distance  in  advance  which  could  only  be  his,  — 
but  how  changed  from  his  former  port  and  figure!  There  was  no 
mistaking  the  long  iron-gray  locks,  the  carriage  of  the  head,  and 
the  general  look  of  the  natural  outlines  and  movement ;  but  he 
seemed  to  have  shrunken  in  all  his  dimensions,  and  faltered  along 
with  an  uncertain,  feeble  step,  as  if  every  movement  were  an  effort. 
I  joined  him,  and  we  walked  together  half  an  hour,  during  which 
6 


122  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

time  I  learned  so  much  of  his  state  of  mind  and  body  as  could  be 
got  at  without  worrying  him  with  suggestive  questions,  —  my 
object  being  to  form  an  opinion  of  his  condition,  as  I  had  been 
requested  to  do,  and  to  give  him  some  hints  that  might  be  useful  to 
him  on  his  journey. 

"  His  aspect,  medically  considered,  was  very  unfavorable.  There 
were  persistent  local  symptoms,  referred  especially  to  the  stomach, 
—  '  boring  pain,'  distension,  difficult  digestion,  with  great  wasting 
of  flesh  and  strength.  He  was  very  gentle,  very  willing  to  answer 
questions,  very  docile  to  such  counsel  as  I  offered  him,  but  evident- 
ly had  no  hope  of  recovering  his  health.  He  spoke  as  if  his  work 
were  done,  and  he  should  write  no  more. 

"  With  all  his  obvious  depression,  there  was  no  failing  noticeable 
in  his  conversational  powers.  There  was  the  same  backwardness 
and  hesitancy  which  in  his  best  days  it  was  hard  for  him  to  over- 
come, so  that  talking  Avith  him  was  almost  like  love-making,  and 
his  shy,  beautiful  soul  had  to  be  wooed  from  its  bashful  prudency 
like  an  unschooled  maiden.  The  calm  despondency  with  which  he 
spoke  about  himself  confirmed  the  unfavorable  opinion  suggested 
by  his  look  and  history." 

I  saw  Hawthorne  alive,  for  the  last  time,  the  day  he 
started  on  this  his  last  mortal  journey.  His  speech  and 
his  gait  indicated  severe  illness,  and  I  had  great  misgiv- 
ings about  the  jaunt  he  was  proposing  to  take  so  early  in 
the  season.  His  tones  were  more  subdued  than  ever,  and 
he  scarcely  spoke  above  a  whisper.  He  was  very  affec- 
tionate in  parting,  and  I  followed  him  to  the  door,  look- 
ing after  him  as  he  went  up  School  Street.  I  noticed 
that  he  faltered  from  weakness,  and  I  should  have  taken 
my  hat  and  joined  him  to  offer  my  arm,  but  I  knew  he 
did  not  wish  to  seem  ill,  and  I  feared  he  might  be  troubled 
at  my  anxiety.  Fearing  to  disturb  him,  I  followed  him 
with  my  eyes  only,  and  watched  him  till  he  turned  the 
corner  and  passed  out  of  sight. 

On  the  morning  of  the  19th  of  May,  1864,  a  telegram, 
signed  by  Franklin  Pierce,  stunned  us  all.  It  announced 
the  death  of  Hawthorne.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  same 
day  came  this  letter  to  me  :  — 


HAWTHORNE.  123 


"  Pkmigewasset  House,  Plymouth,  N.  H., 
Thursday  morning,  5  o'clock. 

"  My  dear  Sir,  —  The  telegraph  has  communicated  to  you  the 
fact  of  our  dear  friend  Hawthorne's  death.      My  friend  Colonel 

Hibbard,  who  bears  this  note,  was  a  friend  of  H ,  and  will  tell 

you  more  than  I  am  able  to  write. 

"  I  enclose  herewith  a  note  which  I  commenced  last  evening  to 
dear  Mrs.  Hawthorne.  0,  how  will  she  bear  this  shock !  Dear 
mother  —  dear  children  — 

"  When  I  met  Hawthorne  in  Boston  a  week  ago,  it  was  apparent 
that  he  was  much  more  feeble  and  more  seriously  diseased  than  I 
had  supposed  him  to  be.  We  came  from  Centre  Harbor  yesterday 
afternoon,  and  I  thought  he  was  on  the  whole  brighter  than  he  was 
the  day  before.  Through  the  week  he  had  been  inclined  to  som- 
nolency during  the  day,  but  restless  at  night.  He  retired  last  night 
soon  after  nine  o'clock,  and  soon  fell  into  a  quiet  slumber.  In  less 
than  half  an  hour  changed  his  position,  but  continued  to  sleep.  I 
left  the  door  open  between  his  bedroom  and  mine,  —  our  beds 
being  opposite  to  each  other,  —  and  was  asleep  myself  before  eleven 
o'clock.     The  light  continued  to  burn  in  my  room.    At  two  o'clock, 

I  went  to  H 's  bedside ;  he  was  apparently  in  a  sound  sleep, 

and  I  did  not  place  my  hand  upon  him.  At  four  o'clock  I  went 
into  his  room  again,  and,  as  his  position  was  unchanged,  I  placed 
my  hand  upon  him  and  found  that  life  was  extinct.  I  sent,  how- 
ever, immediately  for  a  physician,  and  called  Judge  Bell  and  Colonel 
Hibbard,  who  occupied  rooms  upon  the  same  floor  and  near  me. 
He  lies  upon  his  side,  his  position  so  perfectly  natural  and  easy,  his 
eyes  closed,  that  it  is  difficult  to  realize,  while  looking  upon  his 
noble  face,  that  this  is  death.  He  must  have  passed  from  natural 
slumber  to  that  from  which  there  is  no  waking  without  the  slightest 
movement. 

"  I  cannot  write  to  dear  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  and  you  must  exercise 
your  judgment  with  regard  to  sending  this  and  the  unfinished  note, 
enclosed,  to  her. 

"  Tour  friend, 

"  Franklin  Pierce." 

Hawthorne's  lifelong  desire  that  the  end  might  be  a 
sudden  one  was  gratified.  Often  and  often  he  has  said  to 
me,  "  What  a  blessing  to  go  quickly ! "  So  the  same 
swift  angel  that  came  as  a  messenger  to  Allston,  Irving, 


124  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Prescott,  Macaulay,  Thackeray,  and  Dickens  was  com- 
missioned to  touch  his  forehead,  also,  and  beckon  him 
away. 

The  room  in  which  death  fell  upon  him, 

"  Like  a  shadow  thrown 
Softly  and  lightly  from  a  passing  cloud," 

looks  toward  the  east ;  and  standing  in  it,  as  I  have  fre- 
quently done,  since  he  passed  out  silently  into  the  skies, 
it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  scene  on  that  spring  morning 
which  President  Pierce  so  feelingly  describes  in  his  letter. 
On  the  24th  of  May  we  carried  Hawthorne  through  the 
blossoming  orchards  of  Concord,  and  laid  him  down  under 
a  group  of  pines,  on  a  hillside,  overlooking  historic  fields. 
All  the  way  from  the  village  church  to  the  grave  the 
birds  kept  up  a  perpetual  melody.  The  sun  shone 
brightly,  and  the  air  was  sweet  and  pleasant,  as  if 
death  had  never  entered  the  world.  Longfellow  and 
Emerson,  Channing  and  Hoar,  Agassiz  and  Lowell, 
Greene  and  Whipple,  Alcott  and  Clarke,  Holmes  and 
Hillard,  and  other  friends  whom  he  loved,  walked  slowly 
by  his  side  that  beautiful  spring  morning.  The  compan- 
ion of  his  youth  and  his  manhood,  for  whom  he  would 
willingly,  at  any  time,  have  given  up  his  own  life, 
Franklin  Pierce,  was  there  among  the  rest,  and  scattered 
flowers  into  the  grave.  The  unfinished  Eomance,  which 
had  cost  him  so  much  anxiety,  the  last  literary  work  on 
which  he  had  ever  been  engaged,  was  laid  on  his  coffin. 

"Ah  !  who  shall  lift  that  wand  of  magic  power, 
And  the  lost  clew  regain  ? 
The  unfinished  window  in  Aladdin's  tower 
Unfinished  must  remain." 

Longfellow's  beautiful  poem  will  always  be  associated 
with  the  memory  of  Hawthorne,  and  most  fitting  was  it 
that  his  fellow-student,  whom  he  so  loved  and  honored, 
should  sing  his  requiem. 


DICKENS. 


"  O  friend  with  heart  as  gentle  for  distress, 
As  resolute  with  wise  true  thoughts  to  bind 
The  hafpiest  with  the  unhappiest  of  our  hind." 

JOHN  FORSTER. 

"  All  men  are  to  an  tmspeakable  degree  brothers,  each  man's  life  a  strange 
emblem  of  every  man's  ;  and  Human  Portraits,  faithfully  drawn,  are  of  all 
pictures  the  welcomest  on  human  walls."  —  CARLYLE. 


-  _■    -■■-.-. 


"la 


IV. 

DICKENS. 

IOBSEKVE  my  favorite  chair  is  placed  to-day  where 
the  portraits  of  Charles  Dickens  are  easiest  seen,  and 
I  take  the  hint  accordingly.  Those  are  likenesses  of  him 
from  the  age  of  twenty-eight  down  to  the  year  when  he 
passed  through  "the  golden  gate,"  as  that  wise  mystic 
William  Blake  calls  death.  One  would  hardly  believe 
these  pictures  represented  the  same  man  !  See  what  a 
beautiful  young  person  Maclise  represents  in  this  early 
likeness  of  the  great  author,  and  then  contrast  the  face 
with  that  worn  one  in  the  photograph  of  1869.  The 
same  man,  but  how  different  in  aspect !  I  sometimes 
think,  while  looking  at  those  two  portraits,  I  must  have 
known  two  individuals  bearing  the  same  name,  at  various 
periods  of  my  own  life.  Let  me  speak  to-day  of  the 
younger  Dickens.  How  well  I  recall  the  bleak  winter 
evening  in  1842  when  I  first  saw  the  handsome,  glowing 
face  of  the  young  man  who  was  even  then  famous  over 
half  the  globe !  He  came  bounding  into  the  Tremont 
House,  fresh  from  the  steamer  that  had  brought  him  to 
our  shores,  and  his  cheery  voice  rang  through  the  hall,  as 
he  gave  a  quick  glance  at  the  new  scenes  opening  upon 
him  in  a  strange  land  on  first  arriving  at  a  Transatlantic 
hotel.  "  Here  we  are  ! "  he  shouted,  as  the  lights  burst 
upon  the  merry  party  just  entering  the  house,  and  several 
gentlemen  came  forward  to  greet  him.  Ah,  how  happy 
and  buoyant  he  was  then  !     Young,   handsome,  almost 


128  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

worshipped  for  his  genius,  belted  round  by  such  troops  of 
friends  as  rarely  ever  man  had,  coming  to  a  new  country 
to  make  new  conquests  of  fame  and  honor,  —  surely  it 
was  a  sight  long  to  be  remembered  and  never  wholly  to 
be  forgotten.  The  splendor  of  his  endowments  and  the 
personal  interest  he  had  won  to  himself  called  forth  all 
the  enthusiasm  of  old  and  young  America,  and  I  am  glad 
to  have  been  among  the  first  to  witness  his  arrival.  You 
ask  me  what  was  his  appearance  as  he  ran,  or  rather  flew, 
up  the  steps  of  the  hotel,  and  sprang  into  the  hall.  He 
seemed  all  on  fire  with  curiosity,  and  alive  as  I  never  saw 
mortal  before.  From  top  to  toe  every  fibre  of  his  body 
was  unrestrained  and  alert.  What  vigor,  what  keenness, 
what  freshness  of  spirit,  possessed  him  !  He  laughed  all 
over,  and  did  not  care  who  heard  him  !  He  seemed  like 
the  Emperor  of  Cheerfulness  on  a  cruise  of  pleasure,  de- 
termined to  conquer  a  realm  or  two  of  fun  every  hour  of 
his  overflowing  existence.  That  night  impressed  itself  on 
my  memory  for  all  time,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned  with 
things  sublunary.  It  was  Dickens,  the  true  "  Boz,"  in 
flesh  and  blood,  who  stood  before  us  at  last,  and  with  my 
companions,  three  or  four  lads  of  my  own  age,  I  deter- 
mined to  sit  up  late  that  night.  None  of  us  then,  of 
course,  had  the  honor  of  an  acquaintance  with  the  delight- 
ful stranger,  and  I  little  thought  that  I  should  afterwards 
come  to  know  him  in  the  beaten  way  of  friendship,  and 
live  with  him  day  after  day  in  years  far  distant ;  that  I 
should  ever  be  so  near  to  him  that  he  would  reveal  to  me 
his  joys  and  his  sorrows,  and  thus  that  I  should  learn  the 
story  of  his  life  from  his  own  lips. 

About  midnight  on  that  eventful  landing,  "  Boz,"  — 
everybody  called  him  "Boz"  in  those  days,  —  having 
finished  his  supper,  came  down  into  the  office  of  the 
hotel,  and,  joining  the  young  Earl  of  M ,  his  fellow- 
voyager,  sallied  out  for  a  first  look  at  Boston  streets.     It 


DICKENS.  129 


was  a  stinging  night,  and  the  moon  was  at  the  full. 
Every  object  stood  out  sharp  and  glittering,  and  "  Boz," 
muffled  up  in  a  shaggy  fur  coat,  ran  over  the  shining 
frozen  snow,  wisely  keeping  the  middle  of  the  street  for 
the  most  part.  We  boys  followed  cautiously  behind,  but 
near  enough  not  to  lose  any  of  the  fun.  Of  course  the 
two  gentlemen  soon  lost  their  way  on  emerging  into 
Washington  from  Tremont  Street.  Dickens  kept  up  one 
continual  shout  of  uproarious  laughter  as  he  went  rapidly 
forward,  reading  the  signs  on  the  shops,  and  observing  the 
"  architecture "  of  the  new  country  into  which  he  had 
dropped  as  if  from  the  clouds.  When  the  two  arrived 
opposite  the  "  Old  South  Church  "  Dickens  screamed.  To 
this  day  I  could  never  tell  why.  Was  it  because  of  its 
fancied  resemblance  to  St.  Paul's  or  the  Abbey  ?  I  de- 
clare firmly,  the  mystery  of  that  shout  is  still  a  mystery 
to  me ! 

The  great  event  of  Boz's  first  visit  to  Boston  was  the 
dinner  of  welcome  tendered  to  him  by  the  young  men  of 
the  city.  It  is  idle  to  attempt  much  talk  about  the  ban- 
quet given  on  that  Monday  night  in  February,  twenty- 
nine  years  ago.  Papanti's  Hall  (where  many  of  us  learned 
to  dance,  under  the  guidance  of  that  master  of  legs,  now 
happily  still  among  us  and  pursuing  the  same  highly  use- 
ful calling  which  he  practised  in  1842)  was  the  scene  of 
that  festivity.  It  was  a  glorious  episode  in  all  our  lives, 
and  whoever  was  not  there  has  suffered  a  loss  not  easy  to 
estimate.  We  younger  members  of  that  dinner-party  sat 
in  the  seventh  heaven  of  happiness,  and  were  translated 
into  other  spheres.  Accidentally,  of  course,  I  had  a  seat 
just  in  front  of  the  honored  guest ;  saw  him  take  a  pinch 
of  snuff  out  of  Washington  Allston's  box,  and  heard  him 
joke  with  old  President  Quincy.  Was  there  ever  such  a 
night  before  in  our  staid  city  ?  Did  ever  mortal  preside 
with  such  felicitous  success  as  did  Mr.  Quincy  ?  How  he 
6*  1 


13°  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

went  on  with  his  delicious  compliments  to  our  guest ! 
How  he  revelled  in  quotations  from  "  Pickwick "  and 
"  Oliver  Twist "  and  "  The  Curiosity  Shop  "  !  And  how 
admirably  he  closed  his  speech  of  welcome,  calling  up 
the  young  author  amid  a  perfect  volley  of  applause ! 
"Health,  Happiness,  and  a  Hearty  Welcome  to  Charles 
Dickens."  I  can  see  and  hear  Mr.  Quincy  now,  as  he 
spoke  the  words.  Were  ever  heard  such  cheers  before  ? 
And  when  Dickens  stood  up  at  last  to  answer  for  him- 
self, so  fresh  and  so  handsome,  with  his  beautiful  eyes 
moist  with  feeling,  and  his  whole  frame  aglow  with  ex- 
citement, how  we  did  hurrah,  we  young  fellows  !  Trust 
me,  it  was  a  great  night;  and  we  must  have  made  a 
mighty  noise  at  our  end  of  the  table,  for  I  remember 
frequent  messages  came  down  to  us  from  the  "  Chair," 
begging  that  we  would  hold  up  a  little  and  moderate  if 
possible  the  rapture  of  our  applause. 

After  Dickens  left  Boston  he  went  on  his  American 
travels,  gathering  up  materials,  as  he  journeyed,  for  his 
"  American  Notes."  He  was  accompanied  as  far  as  New 
York  by  a  very  dear  friend,  to  whom  he  afterwards  ad- 
dressed several  most  interesting  letters.  For  that  friend 
he  always  had  the  warmest  enthusiasm ;  and  when  he 
came  the  second  time  to  America,  there  was  no  one  of  his 
old  companions  whom  he  missed  more.  Let  us  read  some 
of  these  letters  written  by  Dickens  nearly  thirty  years 
ago.  The  friend  to  whom  they  were  addressed  was  also 
an  intimate  and  dear  associate  of  mine,  and  his  chil- 
dren have  kindly  placed  at  my  disposal  the  whole  corre- 
spondence. Here  is  the  first  letter,  time-stained,  but 
preserved  with  religious  care. 

Fuller's  Hotel,  Washington,  Monday,  March  14,  1842. 

My  dear  Felton  :  I  was  more  delighted  than  I  can  possibly 
tell  you  to  receive  (last  Saturday  night)  your  welcome  letter.  We 
and  the  oysters  missed  you  terribly  in  New  York.     You  carried 


DICKENS.  131 


away  with  you  more  than  half  the  delight  and  pleasure  of  my  New 
World ;  and  I  heartily  wish  you  could  bring  it  back  again. 

There  are  very  interesting  men  in  this  place,  —  highly  interesting, 
of  course,  —  but  it 's  not  a  comfortable  place ;  is  it  ?  If  spittle 
could  wait  at  table  we  should  be  nobly  attended,  but  as  that  prop- 
erty has  not  been  imparted  to  it  in  the  present  state  of  mechanical 
science,  we  are  rather  lonely  and  orphan-like,  in  respect  of  "  being 
looked  .liter."  A  blithe  black  was  introduced  on  our  arrival,  as  our 
peculiar  and  especial  attendant.  He  is  the  only  gentleman  in  the 
town  who  has  a  peculiar  delicacy  in  intruding  upon  my  valuable 
time.  It  usually  takes  seven  rings  and  a  threatening  message  from 
to  produce  him ;  and  when  he  comes  he  goes  to  fetch  some- 
thing, and,  forgetting  it  by  the  way,  comes  back  no  more. 

We  have  been  in  great  distress,  really  in  distress,  at  the  non-arrival 
of  the  Caledonia.  You  may  conceive  what  our  joy  was,  when,  while 
we  were  dining  out  yesterday,  H.  arrived  with  the  joyful  intelligence 
of  her  safety.  The  very  news  of  her  having  really  arrived  seemed 
to  diminish  the  distance  between  ourselves  and  home,  by  one  half 
at  least. 

And  this  morning  (though  we  have  not  yet  received  our  heap  of 
despatches,  for  which  we  are  looking  eagerly  forward  to  this  night's 
mail),  —  this  morning  there  reached  us  unexpectedly,  through  the 
government  bag  (Heaven  knows  how  they  came  there),  two  of  our 
many  and  long-looked-for  letters,  wherein  was  a  circumstantial 
account  of  the  whole  conduct  and  behavior  of  our  pets  ;  with  mar- 
vellous narrations  of  Charley's  precocity  at  a  Twelfth  Night  juve- 
nile party  at  Macready's ;  and  tremendous  predictions  of  the  gov- 
erness, dimly  suggesting  his  having  got  out  of  pot-hooks  and  hangers, 
and  darkly  insinuating  the  possibility  of  his  writing  us  a  letter 
before  long ;  and  many  other  workings  of  the  same  prophetic  spirit, 
in  reference  to  him  and  his  sisters,  very  gladdening  to  their  mother's 
heart,  and  not  at  all  depressing  to  their  father's.  There  was,  also, 
the  doctor's  report,  which  was  a  clean  bill  ;  and  the  nurse's  report, 
which  was  perfectly  electrifying;  showing  as  it  did  how  Master 
Walter  had  been  weaned,  and  had  cut  a  double  tooth,  and  done 
many  other  extraordinary  things,  quite  worthy  of  his  high  descent. 
In  short,  we  were  made  very  happy  and  grateful ;  and  felt  as  if  the 
prodigal  father  and  mother  had  got  home  again. 

What  do  you  think  of  this  incendiary  card  being  left  at  my  door 
last  night  ?  "  General  G.  sends  compliments  to  Mr.  Dickens,  and 
called  with  two  literary  ladies.  As  the  two  L.  L.'s  are  ambitious 
of  the  honor  of  a  personal  introduction  to  Mr.    D.,   General   G. 


132  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

requests  the  honor  of  an  appointment  for  to-morrow."  I  draw  a 
veil  over  my  sufferings.     They  are  sacred. 

We  have  altered  our  route,  and  don't  mean  to  go  to  Charles- 
ton, for  I  want  to  see  the  West,  and  have  taken  it  into  my 
head  that  as  I  am  not  obliged  to  go  to  Charleston,  and  don't 
exactly  know  why  I  should  go  there,  I  need  do  no  violence 
to  my  own  inclinations.  My  route  is  of  Mr.  Clay's  designing, 
and  I  think  it  a  very  good  one.  We  go  on  Wednesday  night  to 
Richmond  in  Virginia.  On  Monday  we  return  to  Baltimore  for 
two  days.  On  Thursday  morning  we  start  for  Pittsburg,  and  so  go 
by  the  Ohio  to  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  Kentucky,  Lexington,  St. 
Louis  ;  and  either  down  the  Lakes  to  Buffalo,  or  back  to  Philadel- 
phia, and  by  New  York  to  that  place,  where  we  shall  stay  a  week, 
and  then  make  a  hasty  trip  into  Canada.  We  shall  be  in  Buffalo, 
please  Heaven,  on  the  30th  of  April.  If  I  don't  find  a  letter  from 
you  in  the  care  of  the  postmaster  at  that  place,  I  '11  never  write  to 
you  from  England. 

But  if  I  do  find  one,  my  right  hand  shall  forget  its  cunning, 
before  I  forget  to  be  your  truthful  and  constant 'correspondent;  not, 
dear  Felton,  because  I  promised  it,  nor  because  I  have  a  natural 
tendency  to  correspond  (which  is  far  from  being  the  case),  nor 
because  I  am  truly  grateful  to  you  for,  and  have  been  made  truly 

proud  by,  that  affectionate  and  elegant  tribute  which sent  me, 

but  because  you  are  a  man  after  my  own  heart,  and  I  love  you  tvell. 
And  for  the  love  I  bear  you,  and  the  pleasure  with  which  I  shall 
always  think  of  you,  and  the  glow  I  shall  feel  when  I  see  your 
handwriting  in  my  own  home,  I  hereby  enter  into  a  solemn  league 
and  covenant  to  write  as  many  letters  to  you  as  you  write  to  me,  at 
least.     Amen. 

Come  to  England  !  Come  to  England !  Our  oysters  are  small  I 
know ;  they  are  said  by  Americans  to  be  coppery,  but  our  hearts  are 
of  the  largest  size.  We  are  thought  to  excel  in  shrimps,  to  be  far 
from  despicable  in  point  of  lobsters,  and  in  periwinkles  are  considered 
to  challenge  the  universe.  Our  oysters,  small  though  they  be,  are 
not  devoid  of  the  refreshing  influence  which  that  species  of  fish  is 
supposed  to  exercise  in  these  latitudes.     Try  them  and  compare. 

Affectionately  yours, 

Charles  Dickens. 

His  next  letter  is  dated  from  Niagara,  and  I  know 
every  one  will  relish  his  allusion  to  oysters  with  wet 
feet,  and  his  reference  to  the  squeezing  of  a  Quaker. 


DICKENS.  133 


Clifton  House,  Niagara  Falls,  29th  April,  1842. 

My  dear  Felton:  Before  1  go  any  farther,  let  me  explain  to 
you  what  these  great  enclosures  portend,  lest  —  supposing  them 
part  and  parcel  of  my  letter,  and  asking  to  be  read  —  you  shall  fall 
into  fits,  from  which  recovery  might  be  doubtful. 

They  are,  as  you  will  see,  four  copies  of  the  same  thing.  The 
nature  of  the  document  you  will  discover  at  a  glance.  As  I  hoped 
and  believed,  the  best  of  the  British  brotherhood  took  fire  at  my 
being  attacked  because  I  spoke  my  mind  and  theirs  on  the  subject 
of  an  international  copyright;  and  with  all  good  speed,  and  hearty 
private  Letters,  transmitted  to  me  this  small  parcel  of  gauntlets  for 
immediate  casting  down. 

Now  my  first  idea  was,  publicity  being  the  object,  to  send  one 
copy  to  you  for  a  Boston  newspaper,  another  to  Bryant  for  his 
paper,  a  third  to  the  New  York  Herald  (because  of  its  large  circu- 
lation), and  a  fourth  to  a  highly  respectable  journal  at  Washington 
(the  property  of  a  gentleman,  and  a  fine  fellow  named  Seaton, 
whom  I  knew  there),  which  I  think  is  called  the  Intelligencer. 
Then  the  Knickerbocker  stepped  into  my  mind,  and  then  it  occurred 
to  me  that  possibly  the  North  American  Review  might  be  the  best 
organ  after  all,  because  indisputably  the  most  respectable  and  hon- 
orable, and  the  most  concerned  in  the  rights  of  literature. 

Whether  to  limit  its  publication  to  one  journal,  or  to  extend  it  to 
several,  is  a  question  so  very  difficult  of  decision  to  a  stranger,  that 
I  have  finally  resolved  to  send  these  papers  to  you,  and  ask  you 
(mindful  of  the  conversation  we  had  on  this  head  one  day,  in  that 
renowned  oyster-cellar)  to  resolve  the  point  for  me.  You  need  feel 
no  weighty  sense  of  responsibility,  my  dear  Felton,  for  whatever 
you  do  is  sure  to  please  me.  If  you  see  Sumner,  take  him  into  our 
councils.  The  only  two  things  to  be  borne  in  mind  are,  first,  that  if 
they  be  published  in  several  quarters,  they  must  be  published  in  all 
simultaneously ;  secondly,  that  I  hold  them  in  trust,  to  put  them 
before  the  people. 

I  fear  this  is  imposing  a  heavy  tax  upon  your  friendship  ;  and  I 
don't  fear  it  the  less,  by  reason  of  being  well  assured  that  it  is  one 
you  will  most  readily  pay.  I  shall  be  in  Montreal  about  the  11th 
of  May.  Will  you  write  to  me  there,  to  the  care  of  the  Earl  of 
Mulgrave,  and  tell  me  what  you  have  done  ? 

So  much  for  that,  Bisness  first,  pleasure  artervards,  as  King 
Richard  the  Third  said  ven  he  stabbed  the  tother  king  in  the 
ToAver,  afore  he  murdered  the  babbies. 

I  have  long  suspected  that  oysters  have  a  rheumatic  tendency 


134  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Their  feet  are  always  wet ;  and  so  much  damp  company  in  a  man's 
inside  cannot  contribute  to  his  peace.  But  whatever  the  cause  of 
your  indisposition,  we  are  truly  grieved  and  pained  to  hear  of  it, 
and  should  be  more  so,  but  that  we  hope  from  your  account  of  that 
farewell  dinner,  that  you  are  all  right  again.  I  did  receive  Long- 
fellow's note.  Sumner  I  have  not  yet  heard  from ;  for  which 
reason  I  am  constantly  bringing  telescopes  to  bear  on  the  ferry- 
boat, in  hopes  to  see  him  coming  over,  accompanied  by  a  modest 
portmanteau. 

To  say  anything  about  this  wonderful  place  would  be  sheer  non- 
sense. It  far  exceeds  my  most  sanguine  expectations,  though  the 
impression  on  my  mind  has  been,  from  the  first,  nothing  but  beauty 
and  peace.  I  have  n't  drunk  the  water.  Bearing  in  mind  your 
caution,  I  have  devoted  myself  to  beer,  whereof  there  is  an  exceed- 
ingly pretty  fall  in  this  house. 

One  of  the  noble  hearts  who  sat  for  the  Cheeryble  brothers  is 
dead.  If  I  had  been  in  England,  I  would  certainly  have  gone  into 
mourning  for  the  loss  of  such  a  glorious  fife.  His  brother  is  not 
expected  to  survive  him.  I  am  told  that  it  appears  from  a  memo- 
randum found  among  the  papers  of  the  deceased,  that  in  his  life- 
time he  gave  away  in  charity  £  600,000,  or  three  millions  of 
dollars ! 

What  do  you  say  to  my  acting  at  the  Montreal  Theatre  ?  I  am 
an  old  hand  at  such  matters,  and  am  going  to  join  the  officers  of  the 
garrison  in  a  public  representation  for  the  benefit  of  a  local  charity. 
We  shall  have  a  good  house,  they  say.  I  am  going  to  enact  one 
Mr.  Snobbington  in  a  funny  farce  called  A  G-ood  Night's  Rest.  I 
shall  want  a  flaxen  wig  and  eyebrows;  and  my  nightly  rest  is 
broken  by  visions  of  there  being  no  such  commodities  in  Canada. 
I  wake  in  the  dead  of  night  in  a  cold  perspiration,  surrounded  by 
imaginary   barbers,    all    denying   the    existence   or   possibility   of 

obtaining  such  articles.     If had  a  flaxen  head,  I  would  certainly 

have  it  shaved  and  get  a  wig  and  eyebrows  out  of  him,  for  a  small 
pecuniary  compensation. 

By  the  by,  if  you  could  only  have  seen  the  man  at  Harrisburg, 
crushing  a  friendly  Quaker  in  the  parlor  door !  It  was  the  greatest 
sight  I  ever  saw.  I  had  told  him  not  to  admit  anybody  whatever, 
forgetting  that  I  had  previously  given  this  honest  Quaker  a  special 
invitation  to  come.  The  Quaker  would  not  be  denied,  and  H.  was 
stanch.  When  I  came  upon  them,  the  Quaker  was  black  in  the 
face,  and  H.  was  administering  the  final  squeeze.  The  Quaker  was 
still   rubbing   his   waistcoat  with  an   expression   of  acute   inward 


DICKENS.  135 


suffering,  when  I  left  the  town.     I  have  been  looking  for  his  death 
in  the  newspapers  almost  daily. 

Do  you  know  one  General  G.  ?  He  is  a  weazen-faced  warrior, 
and  in  his  dotage.  I  had  him  for  a  fellow-passenger  on  board  a 
steamboat.  I  had  also  a  statistical  colonel  with  me,  outside  the 
coach  from  Cincinnati  to  Columbus.  A  New  England  poet  buzzed 
about  me  on  the  Ohio,  like  a  gigantic  bee.  A  mesmeric  doctor,  of 
an  impossibly  great  age,  gave  me  pamphlets  at  Louisville.  I  have 
suffered  much,  very  much. 

If  1  could  get  beyond  New  York  to  see  anybody,  it  would  be 
(as  you  know)  to  see  you.  But  I  do  not  expect  to  reach  the 
"  Carlton  "  until  the  last  day  of  May,  and  then  we  are  going  with 
the  Coldens  somewhere  on  the  banks  of  the  North  River  for  a 
couple  of  days.  So  you  see  we  shall  not  have  much  leisure  for  our 
voyaging  preparations. 

You  and  Dr.  Howe  (to  whom  my  love)  must  come  to  New 
York.  On  the  6th  of  June,  you  must  engage  yourselves  to  dine 
with  us  at  the  "  Carlton  " ;  and  if  we  don't  make  a  merry  evening 
of  it,  the  fault  shall  not  be  in  us. 

Mrs.  Dickons  unites  with  me  in  best  regards  to  Mrs.  Felton  and 
your  little  daughter,  and  I  am  always,  my  dear  Felton, 

Affectionately  your  friend, 

Charles  Dickens. 

P.  S.  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  Walker  at  Cincinnati.  I  like  him 
very  much.  We  took  to  him  mightily  at  first,  because  he  resem- 
bled you  in  face  and  figure,  we  thought.  You  will  be  glad  to  hear 
that  our  news  from  home  is  cheering  from  first  to  last,  all  well, 
happy,  and  loving.  My  friend  Forster  says  in  his  last  letter  that  he 
"  wants  to  know  you,"  and  looks  forward  to  Longfellow. 

When  Dickens  arrived  in  Montreal  he  had,  it  seems,  a 
busy  time  of  it,  and  I  have  often  heard  of  his  capital  act- 
ing in  private  theatricals  while  in  that  city. 

Montreal,  Saturday,  21st  May,  1842. 

My  dear  Felton:  I  was  delighted  to  receive  your  letter  yes- 
terday, and  was  well  pleased  with  its  contents.  I  anticipated 
objection  to  Carlyle's  letter.  I  called  particular  attention  to  it  for 
three  reasons.  Firstly,  because  he  boldly  said  what  all  the  others 
think,  and  therefore  deserved  to  be  manfully  supported.  Secondly, 
because  it  is  my  deliberate  opinion  that  I  have  been  assailed  on  this 
subject  in  a  manner  in  which  no  man  with  any  pretensions  to  public 


136  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

respect  or  with  the  remotest  right  to  express  an  opinion  on  a 
subject  of  universal  literary  interest  would  be  assailed  in  any  other 
country 

I  really  cannot  sufficiently  thank  you,  dear  Felton,  for  your  warm 
and  hearty  interest  in  these  proceedings.  But  it  would  be  idle  to 
pursue  that  theme,  so  let  it  pass. 

The  wig  and  whiskers  are  in  a  state  of  the  highest  preservation 
The  play  comes  off  next  Wednesday  night,  the  25th.  Wkat  would 
I  give  to  see  you  in  the  front  row  of  the  centre  box,  your  spectacles 
gleaming  not  unlike  those  of  my  dear  friend  Pickwick,  your  lace 
radiant  with  as  broad  a  grin  as  a  staid  professor  may  indulge  in, 
and  your  very  coat,  waistcoat,  and  shoulders  expressive  of  what  we 
should  take  together  when  the  performance  was  over !  I  would 
give  something  (not  so  much,  but  still  a  good  round  sum)  if  you 
could  only  stumble  into  that  very  dark  and  dusty  theatre  in  the 
daytime  (at  any  minute  between  twelve  and  three),  and  see  me 
with  my  coat  off,  the  stage  manager  and  universal  director,  urging 
impracticable  ladies  and  impossible  gentlemen  on  to  the  very  con- 
fines of  insanity,  shouting  and  driving  about,  in  my  own  person,  to 
an  extent  which  Avould  justify  any  philanthropic  stranger  in  clap- 
ping me  into  a  strait-waistcoat  without  further  inquiry,  endeav- 
oring to  goad  H.  into  some  dim  and  faint  understanding  of  a 
prompter's  duties,  and  struggling  in  such  a  vortex  of  noise,  dirt, 
bustle,  confusion,  and  inextricable  entanglement  of  speech  and 
action  as  you  would  grow  giddy  in  contemplating.  We  perform  A 
Roland  for  an  Oliver,  A  good  Night's  Rest,  and  Deaf  as  a  Post. 
This  kind  of  voluntary  hard  labor  used  to  be  my  great  delight. 
The  furor  has  come  strong  upon  me  again,  and  I  begin  to  be  once 
more  of  opinion  that  nature  intended  me  for  the  lessee  of  a  national 
theatre,  and  that  pen,  ink,  and  paper  have  spoiled  a  manager. 

0,  how  I  look  forward  across  that  rolling  water  to  home  and  its 
small  tenantry !  How  I  busy  myself  in  thinking  how  my  books 
look,  and  where  the  tables  are,  and  in  wnat  positions  the  chairs 
stand  relatively  to  the  other  furniture ;  and  whether  we  shall  get 
there  in  the  night,  or  in  the  morning,  or  in  the  afternoon ;  and 
whether  we  shall  be  able  to  surprise  them,  or  whether  they  will  be 
too  sharply  looking  out  for  us ;  and  what  our  pets  will  say ;  and 
how  they  '11  look ,  and  who  will  be  the  first  to  come  and  shake 
hands,  and  so  forth !  If  I  could  but  tell  you  how  I  have  set  my 
heart  on  rushing  into  Forster's  study  (he  is  my  great  friend,  and 
writes  at  the  bottom  of  all  his  letters,  "  My  love  to  Felton  "),  and 
into  Maclise's  pain  ting- room,  and  into  Macready's  managerial  ditto, 


DICKENS.  137 


without  a  moment's  warning,  and  how  I  picture  every  little  trait 
and  circumstance  of  our  arrival  to  myself,  down  to  the  very  color  of 
the  bow  on  the  cook's  cap,  you  would  almost  think  I  had  changed 
places  with  my  eldest  son,  and  was  still  in  pantaloons  of  the 
thinnest  texture.  I  left  all  these  things  —  God  only  knows  what 
a  love  I  have  for  them  —  as  coolly  and  calmly  as  any  animated 
cucumber;  but  when  I  come  upon  them  again  I  shall  have  lost  all 
power  of  self-restraint,  and  shall  as  certainly  make  a  fool  of  myself 
(in  the  popular  meaning  of  that  expression)  as  ever  G-rimaldi  did  in 
his  way,  or  George  III.  in  his. 

And  not  the  less  so,  dear  Felton,  for  having  found  some  warm 
hearts,  and  left  some  instalments  of  earnest  and  sincere  affection, 
behind  me  on  this  continent.  And  whenever  I  turn  my  mental 
telescope  hitherward,  trust  me  that  one  of  the  first  figures  it  will 
descry  will  wear  spectacles  so  like  yours  that  the  maker  could  n't 
tell  the  difference,  and  shall  address  a  Greek  class  in  such  an  exact 
imitation  of  your  voice,  that  the  very  students  hearing  it  should 
cry,  "  That  's  he  !   Three  cheers.     Hoo-ray-ay-ay-ay-ay  !  " 

About  those  joints  of  yours,  I  think  you  are  mistaken.  They 
can't  be  stiff.  At  the  worst  they  merely  want  the  air  of  New 
York,  which,  being  impregnated  with  the  flavor  of  last  year'a 
oysters,  has  a  surprising  effect  in  rendering  the  human  frame 
supple  and  flexible  in  all  cases  of  rust. 

A  terrible  idea  occurred  to  me  as  I  wrote  those  words.  The 
oyster-cellars,  —  what  do  they  do  when  oysters  are  not  in  season  ? 
Is  pickled  salmon  vended  there  ?  Do  they  sell  crabs,  shrimps, 
tvinkles,  herrings?  The  oyster-openers, — what  do  they  do?  Do 
they  commit  suicide  in  despair,  or  wrench  open  tight  drawers  and 
cupboards  and  hermetically  sealed  bottles  for  practice  ?  Perhaps 
they  are  dentists  out  of  the  oyster  season.     Who  knows  ? 

Affectionately  yours, 

Charles   Dickens 

Dickens  always  greatly  rejoiced  in  the  theatre ;  and, 
having  seen  him  act  with  the  Amateur  Company  of  the 
Guild  of  Literature  and  Art,  I  can  well  imagine  the  de- 
light his  impersonations  in  Montreal  must  have  occa- 
sioned. I  have  seen  him  play  Sir  Charles  Coldstream,  m 
the  comedy  of  Used  Up,  with  sucn  perfection  that  all 
other  performers  in  the  same  part  have  seemed  dull  by 
comparison.    Even  Matthews,  superb  artist  as  he  is>  could 


138  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

not  rival  Dickens  in  the  character  of  Sir  Charles.  Once 
I  saw  Dickens,  Mark  Lemon,  and  Wilkie  Collins  on  the 
stage  together.  The  play  was  called  Mrs.  Nightingale's 
Diary  (a  farce  in  one  act,  the  joint  production  of  Dickens 
;and  Mark  Lemon),  and  Dickens  played  six  characters  in 
the  piece.  Never  have  I  seen  such  wonderful  changes  of 
face  and  form  as  he  gave  us  that  night.  He  was  alter- 
nately a  rattling  lawyer  of  the  Middle  Temple,  a  boots, 
an  eccentric  pedestrian  and  cold-water  drinker,  a  deaf 
sexton,  an  invalid  captain,  and  an  old  woman.  What  fun 
it  was,  to  be  sure,  and  how  we  roared  over  the  perform- 
ance !  Here  is  the  playbill  which  I  held  in  my  hand 
nineteen  years  ago,  while  the  great  writer  was  proving 
himself  to  be  as  pre-eminent  an  actor  as  he  was  an 
author.  One  can  see  by  reading  the  bill  that  Dickens 
was  manager  of  the  company,  and  that  it  was  under  his 
direction  that  the  plays  were  produced.  Observe  the 
clear  evidence  of  his  hand  in  the  very  wording  of  the 
bill;  — 

"  On  Wednesday  evening,  September  1,  1852. 

"THE   AMATEUR  COMPANY 

OF    THE 

GUILD   OF   LITERATURE   AND   ART; 

To  encourage  Life  Assurance  and  other  provident  habits  among 
Authors  and  Artists;  to  render  such  assistance  to  both  as  shall 
never  compromise  their  independence;  and  to  found  a  new  Institu- 
tion where  honorable  rest  from  arduous  labors  shall  still  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  discharge  of  congenial  duties ; 

"  Will  have  the  honor  of  presenting,"  etc.,  etc., 

But  let  us  go  on  with  the  letters.  Here  is  the  first  one 
to  his  friend  after  Dickens  arrived  home  again  in  Eng- 
land.    It  is  delightful,  through  and  through. 

London,  1  Devonshire  Terrace,  York  Gate,  Regent's  Park, 
Sunday,  July  31,1842. 
My  dear  Felton  :    Of  all  the  monstrous  and  incalculable  amount 
of  occupation  that  ever  beset  one  unfortunate  man,  mine  has  been 


DICKENS.  139 


the  most  stupendous  sincj  I  came  home.  The  dinners  I  have  had 
to  eat,  the  places  I  have  had  to  go  to,  the  letters  I  have  had  to 
answer,  the  sea  of  business  and  of  pleasure  in  which  I  have  been 

plunged,  not  even  the  genius  of  an or  the  pen  of  a could 

describe. 

Wherefore  I  indite  a  monstrously  short  and  wildly  uninteresting 
epistle  to  the  American  Danao ;  but  perhaps  you  don't  know  who 
Dando  was.  He  was  an  oyster-eater,  my  dear  Felton.  He  used  to 
go  into  oyster-shops,  without  a  farthing  of  money,  and  stand  at  the 
counter  eating  natives,  until  the  man  who  opened  them  grew  pale, 
cast  down  his  knife,  staggered  backward,  struck  his  white  forehead 
with  his  open  hand,  and  cried,  "  You  are  Dando ! !  !  "  He  has  been 
known  to  eat  twenty  dozen  at  one  sitting,  and  would  have  eaten 
forty,  if  the  truth  had  not  flashed  upon  the  shopkeeper.  For  these 
offences  he  was  constantly  committed  to  the  House  of  Correction. 
During  his  last  imprisonment  he  was  taken  ill,  got  worse  and  worse, 
and  at  last  began  knocking  violent  double-knocks  at  Death's  door. 
The  doctor  stood  beside  his  bed,  with  his  ringers  on  his  pulse.  "  He 
is  going,"  says  the  doctor.  "  I  see  it  in  his  eye.  There  is  only  one 
thing  that  would  keep  life  in  him  for  another  hour,  and  that  is  — 
oysters."  They  were  immediately  brought.  Dando  swallowed 
eight,  and  feebly  took  a  ninth.  He  held  it  in  his  mouth  and  looked 
round  the  bed  strangely.  "Not  a  bad  one,  is  it?"  says  the  doctor. 
The  patient  shook  his  head,  rubbed  his  trembling  hand  upon  his 
stomach,  bolted  the  oyster,  and  fell  back  —  dead.  They  buried  him 
in  the  prison  yard,  and  paved  his  grave  with  oyster-shells. 

We  are  all  well  and  hearty,  and  have  already  begun  to  wonder 
what  time  next  year  you  and  Mrs.  Felton  and  Dr.  Howe  will  come 
across  the  briny  sea  together.  To-morrow  we  go  to  the  seaside  for 
two  months.  I  am  looking  out  for  news  of  Longfellow,  and  shall 
be  delighted  when  I  know  that  he  is  on  his  way  to  London  and  this 
house. 

I  am  bent  upon  striking  at  the  piratical  newspapers  with  the 
sharpest  edge  I  can  put  upon  my  small  axe,  and  hope  in  the  next 
session  of  Parliament  to  stop  their  entrance  into  Canada.  For  the 
first  time  within  the  memory  of  man,  the  professors  of  English 
literature  seem  disposed  to  act  together  on  this  question.  It  is  a 
good  thing  to  aggravate  a  scoundrel,  if  one  can  do  nothing  else, 
and  I  think  we  can  make  them  smart  a  little  in  this  way 

I  wish  you  had  been  at  Greenwich  tne  other  day,  where  a  party 
flf  friends  gave  me  a  private  dinner ;  public  ones  I  have  refused. 
C.  was  perfectly  wild  at  the  reunion,  and,  after  singing  all  manner 


140  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

of  marine  songs,  wound  up  the  entertainment  by  coming  home  (six 
miles)  in  a  little  open  phaeton  of  mine,  on  his  head,  to  the  mingled 
delight  and  indignation  of  the  metropolitan  police.  We  were  very 
jovial  indeed ;  and  I  assure  you  that  I  drank  your  health  with  fear- 
ful vigor  and  energy. 

On  board  that  ship  coming  home  I  established  a  club,  called  the 
United  Vagabonds,  to  the  large  amusement  of  the  rest  of  the  pas- 
sengers. This  holy  brotherhood  committed  all  kinds  of  absurdities, 
and  dined  always,  with  a  variety  of  solemn  forms,  at  one  end  of  the 
table,  below  the  mast,  away  from  all  the  rest.  The  captain  being  ill 
when  we  were  three  or  four  days  out,  I  produced  my  medicine- 
chest  and  recovered  him.  We  had  a  few  more  sick  men  after  that, 
and  I  went  round  "  the  wards "  every  day  in  great  state,  accom- 
panied by  two  Vagabonds,  habited  as  Ben  Allen  and  Bob  Sawyer, 
bearing  enormous  rolls  of  plaster  and  huge  pairs  of  scissors.  We 
were  really  very  merry  all  the  way,  breakfasted  in  one  party  at 

Liverpool,  shook  hands,  and  parted  most  cordially 

Affectionately  ' 

Your  faithful  friend, 

CD. 

P.  S.  I  have  looked  over  my  journal,  and  have  decided  to  pro- 
duce my  American  trip  in  two  volumes.  I  have  written  about  half 
the  first  since  I  came  home,  and  hope  to  be  out  in  October.  This  is 
"  exclusive  news,"  to  be  communicated  to  any  friends  to  whom  you 
may  like  to  intrust  it,  my  dear  F. 

What  a  capital  epistolary  pen  Dickens  held  !  He  seems 
never  to  have  written  the  shortest  note  without  something 
piquant  in  it ;  and  when  he  attempted  a  letter,  he  always 
made  it  entertaining  from  sheer  force  of  habit. 

When  I  think  of  this  man,  and  all  the  lasting  good  and 
abounding  pleasure  he  has  brought  into  the  world,  I  won- 
der at  the  superstition  that  dares  to  arraign  him.  A  sound 
philosopher  once  said  :  "  He  that  thinks  any  innocent  pas- 
time foolish  has  either  to  grow  wiser,  or  is  past  the  ability 
to  do  so " ;  and  I  have  always  counted  it  an  impudent 
fiction  that  playfulness  is  inconsistent  with  greatness. 
Many  men  and  women  have  died  of  Dignity,  but  the 
disease  which  sent  them  to  the  tomb  was  not  contracted 


DICKENS.  141 


from  Charles  Dickens.  Not  long  ago,  I  met  in  the  street 
a  bleak  old  character,  full  of  dogmatism,  egotism,  and 
rheumatism,  who  complained  that  Dickens  had  "  too  much 
exuberant  sociality"  in  his  books  for  him,  and  he  won- 
dered how  any  one  could  get  through  Pickwick.  My 
solemn  friend  evidently  preferred  the  dropping-down- 
deadness  of  manner,  which  he  had  been  accustomed  to 
find  in  Hervey's  "  Meditations,"  and  other  kindred  authors, 
where  it  always  seems  to  be  urged  that  life  would  be 
endurable  but  for  its  pleasures.  A  person  once  com- 
mended to  my  acquaintance  an  individual  whom  he  de- 
scribed as  "  a  fine,  pompous,  gentlemanly  man,"  and  I 
thought  it  prudent,  under  the  circumstances,  to  decline 
the  proffered  introduction. 

But  I  will  proceed  with  those  outbursts  of  bright- 
heartedness  vouchsafed  to  us  in  Dickens's  letters.  To 
me  these  epistles  are  good  as  fresh  "  Uncommercials,"  or 
unpublished  "  Sketches  by  Boz." 

1  Devonshire  Terrace,  York  Gate,  Regent's  Park,  London, 
1st  September,  1842. 

My  dear  Felton  :    Of  course  that  letter  in  the  papers  was  as  foul 

a  forgery  as  ever  felon  swung  for I  have  not  contradicted  it 

publicly,  nor  shall  I.  When  I  tilt  at  such  wringings  out  of  the 
dirtiest  mortality,  I  shall  be  another  man  —  indeed,  almost  the  crea- 
ture they  would  make  me. 

I  gave  your  message  to  Forster,  who  sends  a  despatch-boy  full  of 
kind  remembrances  in  return.  He  is  in  a  great  state  of  delight 
with  the  first  volume  of  my  American  book  (which  I  have  just 
finished),  and  swears  loudly  by  it.  It  is  True,  and  Honorable  I 
know,  and  I  shall  hope  to  send  it  you,  complete,  by  the  first  steamer 
in  November. 

Your  description  of  the  porter  and  the  carpet-bags  prepares  me 
for  a  first-rate  facetious  novel,  brimful  of  the  richest  humor,  on 
which  I  have  no  doubt  you  are  engaged.  What  is  it  called  ?  Some- 
times I  imagine  the  title-page  thus  :  — 


142  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS 

OYSTERS 

IN 

BVEEY     STYLE 

OR 

OPENINGS 

OF 

LIFE 

BY 

YOUNG  DANDO. 

As  to  the  man  putting  the  luggage  on  his  head,  as  a  sort  of  sign, 
adopt  it  from  this  hour. 

I  date  this  from  London,  where  I  have  come,  as  a  good,  profligate, 
graceless  bachelor,  for  a  day  or  two ;  leaving  my  wife  and  babbies 

at  the   seaside Heavens !     if  you  were   but  here   at  thia 

minute  !  A  piece  of  salmon  and  a  steak  are  cooking  in  the  kitchen: 
it 's  a  very  wet  day,  and  I  have  had  a  fire  lighted  ;  the  wine  sparkle? 
on  a  side-table  ;  the  room  looks  the  more  snug  from  being  the  only 
midismantled  one  in  the  house  ;  plates  are  warming  for  Forster  and 
Maclise,  whose  knock  I  am  momentarily  expecting ;  that  groom  I 
told  you  of,  who  never  comes  into  the  house,  except  when  we  are 
all  out  of  town,  is  walking  about  in  his  shirt-sleeves  without  the 
smallest  consciousness  of  impropriety ;  a  great  mound  of  proofs  are 
waiting  to  be  read  aloud,  after  dinner.  With  what  a  shout  I  would 
clap  you  down  into  the  easiest  chair,  my  genial  Felton,  if  you  oould 
but  appear,  and  order  you  a  pair  of  slippers  instantly ! 

Since  I  have  written  this,  the  aforesaid  groom  —  a  very  small 
man  (as  the  fashion  is)  with  fiery-red  hair  (as  the  fashion  is  not)  — 
has  looked  very  hard  at  me  and  fluttered  about  me  at  the  same 
time,  like  a  giant  butterfly.  After  a  pause,  he  says,  in  a  Sam  Wel- 
lerish  kind  of  way :  "  I  vent  to  the  club  this  mornin',  sir.  There 
vorn't  no  letters,  sir."  "  Very  good.  Topping."  "  How  's  missis, 
sir  ?  "  "  Pretty  well,  Topping."  "  Glad  to  hear  it,  sir.  My  missis 
ain't  wery  well,  sir."  "  No !  "  "  No,  sir,  she  's  a  goin',  sir,  to  have 
a  hincrease  wery  soon,  and  it  makes  her  rather  nervous,  sir;  and 
ven  a  young  voman  gets  at  all  down  at  sich  a  time,  sir,  she  goes 
down  wery  deep,  sir."  To  this  sentiment  I  reply  affirmatively,  and 
then  he  adds,  as  he  stirs  the  fire  (as  if  he  were  thinking  out  loud) 
"  Wot  a  mystery  it  is  !  Wot  a  go  is  natur'  !  "  With  which  scrap 
of  philosophy,  he  gradually  gets  nearer  to  the  door,  and  so  fade* 
out  of  the  room. 


DICKENS.  143 


This  same  man  asked  me  one  day,  soon  after  I  came  home,  what 
Sir  John  Wilson  was.  This  is  a  friend  of  mine,  who  took  our  house 
and  servants,  and  everything  as  it  stood,  during  our  absence  in 
America.  I  told  him  an  officer.  ''  A  wot,  sir  ?  "  "  An  officer." 
And  then,  for  fear  he  should  think  I  meant  a  police-officer,  I  added, 
"  An  officer  in  the  army."  "  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  he  said, 
touching  his  hat,  "  but  the  club  as  I  always  drove  him  to  wos  the 
United  Servants." 

The  real  name  of  this  club  is  the  United  Service,  but  I  have  nc 
doubt  he  thought  it  was  a  high-life-below-stairs  kind  of  resort,  and 
that  this  gentleman  was  a  retired  butler  or  superannuated  footman. 

There  's  the  knock,  and  the  Great  Western  sails,  or  steams  rather, 
to-morrow.  Write  soon  again,  dear  Felton,  and  ever  believe 
me,  .... 

Your  affectionate  friend, 

Charles  Dickens. 

P.  S.  All  good  angels  prosper  Dr.  Howe.  He,  at  least,  will  not 
like  me  the  less,  I  hope,  for  what  I  shall  say  of  Laura. 

London,  1  Devonshire  Terrace,  York  G\te,  Regent's  Park, 
31st  December,  1842. 

My  dear  Felton  :  Many  and  many  happy  New  Tears  to  you 
and  yours!  As  many  happy  children  as  may  be  quite  convenient 
(no  more)  !  and  as  many  happy  meetings  between  them  and  our 
children,  and  between  you  and  us,  as  the  kind  fates  in  their  utmost 
kindness  shall  favorably  decree  ! 

The  American  book  (to  begin  with  that)  has  been  a  most  com- 
plete and  thorough-going  success.  Four  large  editions  have  now 
been  sold  and  paid  for,  and  it  has  won  golden  opinions  from  all 
sorts  of  men,  except  our  friend  in  F ,  who  is  a  miserable  crea- 
ture ;  a  disappointed  man  in  great  poverty,  to  whom  I  have  ever 
been  most  kind  and  considerate  (I  need  scarcely  say  that) ;  and 
another  friend  in  B ,  no  less  a  person  than  an  illustrious  gentle- 
man named ,  who  wrote  a  story  called .     They  have  done 

no  harm,  and  have  fallen  short  of  their  mark,  which,  of  course,  was 
to  annoy  me.  Now  I  am  perfectly  free  from  any  diseased  curiosity 
m  such  respects,  and  Avhenever  I  hear  of  a  notice  of  this  kind,  T  never 
read  it ;  whereby  I  always  conceive  (don't  you  ?)  that  I  get  the  vic- 
tory. With  regard  to  your,  slave-owners,  they  may  cry,  till  they  are 
as  black  in  the  face  as  their  own  slaves,  that  Dickens  lies.  Dickens 
does  not  write  for  their  satisfaction,  and  Dickens  will  not  explain  for 
their  comfort.     Dickens  has  the  name  and  date  of  every  newspaper 


144  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

in  which  every  one  of  those  advertisements  appeared,  as  they  know 
perfectly  well ;  but  Dickens  does  not  choose  to  give  them,  and  will 
not  at  any  time  between  this  and  the  day  of  judgment 

I  have  been  hard  at  work  on  my  new  book,  of  which  the  first 
number  has  just  appeared.  The  Paul  Joneses  who  pursue  happiness 
and  profit  at  other  men's  cost  will  no  doubt  enable  you  to  read  it, 
almost  as  soon  as  you  receive  this.  I  hope  you  will  like  it.  And  I 
particularly  commend,  my  dear  Felton,  one  Mr.  Pecksniff  and  his 
daughters  to  your  tender  regards.  I  have  a  kind  of  liking  for  them 
myself. 

Blessed  star  of  morning,  such  a  trip  as  we  had  into  Cornwall,  just 
after  Longfellow  went  away  !  The  "we  "  means  Forster,  Maclise, 
Stanfield  (the  renowned  marine  painter),  and  the  Inimitable  Boz. 
We  went  down  into  Devonshire  by  the  railroad,  and  there  we  hired 
an  open  carriage  from  an  innkeeper,  patriotic  in  all  Pickwick  matters, 
and  went  on  with  post  horses.  Sometimes  we  travelled  all  night, 
sometimes  all  day,  sometimes  both.  I  kept  the  joint-stock  purse, 
ordered  all  the  dinners,  paid  all  the  turnpikes,  conducted  facetious 
conversations  with  the  postboys,  and  regulated  the  pace  at  wh  eh 
we  travelled.  Stanheid  (an  old  sailor)  consulted  an  enormous  map 
on  all  disputed  points  of  wayfaring ;  and  referred,  moreover,  to  a 
pocket-compass  and  other  scientific  instruments.  The  luggage  was 
in  Forsters  department;  and  Maclise.  having  nothing  particular  to 
do,  sang  songs.  Heavens !  If  3rou  could  have  seen  the  necks  of 
bottles  —  distracting  in  their  immense  varieties  of  shape  —  peering 
out  of  the  carriage  pockets !  If  you  could  have  witnessed  the  deep 
devotion  of  the  post-bcys,  the  wild  attachment  of  the  hostlers,  the 
maniac  glee  of  the  waiters.  If  you  could  have  followed  us  into  the 
earthy  old  churches  we  visited,  and  into  the  strange  caverns  on  the 
gloomy  sea-shore,  and  down  into  the  depths  of  mines,  and  up  to 
the  tops  of  giddy  heights  where  the  unspeakably  green  water  was 
roaring,  I  don't  know  how  many  hundred  feet  below  !  If  vou  could 
have  seen  but  one  ^.leam  of  the  bright  fires  by  which  we  sat  in  the 
big  rooms  of  ancient  inns  at  night,  until  long  after  the  sman  hours 
had  come  and  gone,  or  smelt  but  one  steam  of  the  hot  punch  (not 
white,  dear  Felton,  like  that  amazing  compound  I  sent  you  a  taste  of, 
but  a  rich,  genial,  glowing  brown)  which  came  in  every  evening  in 
a  huge  broad  china  bowl !  I  never  laughed  in  my  life  as  I  did  on 
this  journey.  It  would  have  done  you  good  to  hear  me.  I  was 
choking  and  gasping  and  bursting  the  buckle  off  the  back  of  my 
stock,  all  the  way.  And  Stanfield  (who  is  very  much  of  your  figure 
and  temperament,  but  fifteen  years  older)  got  into  such  apoplectic 


DICKENS.  145 


entanglements  that  we  were  often  obliged  to  beat  him  on  the  back 
with  portmanteaus  before  we  could  recover  him.  Seriously,  I  do 
believe  there  never  was  such  a  trip.  And  they  made  such  sketches, 
those  two  men,  in  the  most  romantic  of  our  halting-places,  that  you 
would  have  sworn  we  had  the  Spirit  of  Beauty  with  us,  as  well  as 
the  Spirit  of  Fun.  But  stop  till  you  come  to  England,  —  I  say  no 
more. 

The  actuary  of  the  national  debt  could  n't  calculate  the  number 
of  children  who  are  coming  here  on  Twelfth  Night,  in  honor  of 
Charley's  birthday,  for  which  occasion  I  have  provided  a  magic  lan- 
tern and  divers  other  tremendous  engines  of  that  nature.  But  the 
best  of  it  is  that  Forster  and  I  have  purchased  between  us  the  entire 
stock  in  trade  of  a  conjurer,  the  practice  and  display  whereof  is  in- 
trusted to  me.  And  0  my  dear  eyes,  Felton,  if  you  could  see  me 
conjuring  the  company's  watches  into  impossible  tea-caddies,  and 
causing  pieces  of  money  to  fly,  and  burning  pocket-handkerchiefs 
without  hurting  'em,  and  practising  in  my  own  room,  without  any- 
body to  admire,  you  would  never  forget  it  as  long  as  you  live.  In 
those  tricks  which  require  a  confederate,  I  am  assisted  (by  reason 
of  his  imperturbable  good-humor)  by  Stanfield,  who  always  does 
his  part  exactly  the  wrong  way,  to  the  unspeakable  delight  of  all 
beholders.  We  come  out  on  a  small  scale,  to-night,  at  Forster's, 
where  we  see  the  old  year  out  and  the  new  one  in.  Particulars  of 
shall  be  forwarded  in  my  next. 

I  have  quite  made  up  my  mind  that  F really  believes  he  does 

know  you  personally,  and  has  all  his  life.  He  talks  to  me  about 
you  with  such  gravity  that  I  am  afraid  to  grin,  and  feel  it  necessary 
to  look  quite  serious.  Sometimes  he  tells  me  things  about  you, 
does  n't  ask  me,  you  know,  so  that  I  am  occasionally  perplexed 
beyond  all  telling,  and  begin  to  think  it  was  he,  and  not  I,  who 
went  to  America.     It 's  the  queerest  thing  in  the  world. 

The  book  I  was  to  have  given  Longfellow  for  you  is  not  worth 
sending  by  itself,  being  only  a  Barnaby.  But  I  will  look  up  some 
manuscript  for  you  (I  think  I  have  that  of  the  American  Notes 
complete),  and  will  try  to  make  the  parcel  better  worth  its  long 
conveyance.  With  regard  to  Maclise's  pictures,  you  certainly  are 
quite  right  in  your  impression  of  them ;  but  he  is  "  such  a  discur- 
sive devil "  (as  he  says  about  himself),  and  flies  off  at  such  odd 
tangents,  that  I  feel  it  difficult  to  convey  to  you  any  general  notion 
of  his  purpose.     I  will  try  to  do  so  when  I  write  again.     I  want 

very  much  to  know  about and  that  charming  girl Give 

me  full  particulars.  Will  you  remember  me  cordially  to  Sumner, 
7  J 


146  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  say  I  thank  him  for  his  welcome  letter  ?  The  like  to  Hillard, 
with  many  regards  to  himself  and  his  wife,  with  whom  I  had  one 
night  a  little  conversation  which  I  shall  not  readily  forget.  The 
like  to  Washington  Allston,  and  all  friends  who  care  for  me  and 

have  outlived  my  book Always,  my  dear  Felton, 

With  true  regard  and  affection,  yours, 

Charles  Dickens. 

Here  is  a  letter  that  seems  to  me  something  tremen- 
dous in  its  fun  and  pathos  :  — 

1  Devonshire  Terrace,  York  Gate,  Regent's  Park,  London, 
2d  March,  1843. 

My  dear  Felton:  I  don't  know  where  to  begin,  but  plunge  head- 
long with  a  terrible  splash  into  this  letter,  on  the  chance  of  turning 
up  somewhere. 

Hurrah !  Up  like  a  cork  again,  with  the  "  North  American  Re- 
view "  in  my   hand.     Like  you,  my  dear ,  and  I  can  say  no 

more  in  praise  of  it,  though  I  go  on  to  the  end  of  the  sheet.  You 
cannot  think  how  much  notice  it  has  attracted  here.  Brougham 
called  the  other  day,  with  the  number  (thinking  I  might  not  have 
seen  it),  and  I  being  out  at  the  time,  he  left  a  note,  speaking  of  it, 
and  of  the  writer,  in  terms  that  warmed  my  heart.  Lord  Ashbur- 
ton  (one  of  whose  people  wrote  a  notice  in  the  "  Edinburgh," 
which  they  have  since  publicly  contradicted)  also  wrote  to  me  about 
it  in  just  the  same  strain.     And  many  others  have  done  the  like. 

I  am  in  great  health  and  spirits  and  powdering  away  at  Chuz- 
zlewit,  with  all  manner  of  facetiousness  rising  up  before  me   as 

I  go  on.     As  to  news,  I  have  really  none,  saving  that (who 

never  took  any  exercise  in  his  life)  has  been  laid  up  with  rheuma- 
tism for  weeks  past,  but  is  now,  I  hope,  getting  better.  My  little 
captain,  as  I  call  him,  —  he  who  took  me  out,  I  mean,  and  with 
whom  I  had  that  adventure  of  the  cork  soles,  — has  been  in  London 
too,  and  seeing  all  the  lions  under  my  escort.  Good  heavens !  I 
wish  you  could  have  seen  certain  other  mahogany-faced  men  (also 
captains)  who  used  to  call  here  for  him  in  the  morning,  and  bear 
him  off  to  docks  and  rivers  and  all  sorts  of  queer  places,  whence  he 
always  returned  late  at  night,  with  rum-and-water  tear-drops  in  his 
eyes,  and  a  complication  of  punchy  smells  in  his  mouth  !  He  was 
better  than  a  comedy  to  us,  having  marvellous  ways  of  tying  hi* 
pocket-handkerchief  round  his  neck  at  dinner-time  in  a  kind  of 
jolly  embarrassment,  and  then  forgetting  what  he  had  done  with  it; 
also  of  singing  songs  to  wrong  tunes,  and  calling  land  objects  by 


DICKENS.  147 


sea  names,  and  never  knowing  what  o'clock  it  was,  but  taking  mid- 
night for  seven  in  the  evening;  with  many  other  sailor  oddities,  all 
full  of  honesty,  manliness,  and  good  temper.  We  took  him  to 
Drury  Lane  Theatre  to  see  Much  Ado  About  Nothing.  But  I 
never  could  find  out  what  he  meant  by  turning  round,  after  he  had 
watched  the  first  two  scenes  with  great  attention,  and  inquiring 
"  whether  it  was  a  Polish  piece.".  .  .  . 

On  the  4th  of  April  I  am  going  to  preside  at  a  public  dinner  for 
the  benefit  of  the  printers  ;  and  if  you  were  a  guest  at  that  table, 
would  n't  I  smite  you  on  the  shoulder,  harder  than  ever  I  rapped 
the  well-beloved  back  of  Washington  Irving  at  the  City  Hotel  in 
New  York ! 

You  were  asking  me  —  I  love  to  say  asking,  as  if  we  could  talk 
together  —  about  Maclise.  He  is  such  a  discursive  fellow,  and  so 
eccentric  in  his  might,  that  on  a  mental  review  of  his  pictures  I  can 
hardly  tell  you  of  them  as  leading  to  any  one  strong  purpose.  But 
the  annual  Exhibition  of  the  Royal  Academy  comes  off  in  May,  and 
then  I  will  endeavor  to  give  you  some  notion  of  him.  He  is  a  tre- 
mendous creature,  and  might  do  anything.  But,  like  all  tremendous 
creatures,  he  takes  his  own  way,  and  flies  off  at  unexpected  breaches 
in  the  conventional  wall. 

You  know   H 's  Book,  I  daresay.     Ah !  I  saw  a  scene  of 

mingled  comicality  and  seriousness  at  his  funeral  some  weeks  ago, 

which  has  choked  me  at  dinner-time  ever  since.     C and  I  went 

as  mourners  ;  and  as  he  lived,  poor  fellow,  five  miles  out  of  town,  I 

drove  C down.     It  was  such  a  day  as  I  hope,  for  the  credit  of 

nature,  is  seldom  seen  in  any  parts  but  these,  —  muddy,  foggy,  wet, 
dark,  cold,  and  unutterably  wretched  in  every  possible  respect.  Now, 

C has  enormous  whiskers,  which  straggle  all  down  his  throat  in 

such  weather,  and  stick  out  in  front  of  him,  like  a  partially  unrav- 
elled bird's-nest ;  so  that  he  looks  queer  enough  at  the  best,  but  when 
lie  is  very  wet,  and  in  a  state  between  jollity  (he  is  always  very 
jolly  with  me)  and  the  deepest  gravity  (going  to  a  funeral,  you 
know),  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  resist  him ;  especially  as  he  makes 
the  strangest  remarks  the  mind  of  man  can  conceive,  without  any 
intention  of  being  funny,  but  rather  meaning  to  be  philosophical.  I 
really  cried  with  an  irresistible  sense  of  his  comicality  all  the  way ; 
but  when  he  was  dressed  out  in  a  black  cloak  and  a  very  long  black 
hat-band  by  an  undertaker  (who,  as  he  whispered  me  with  tears  in 
bis  eyes  —  for  he  had  known  H many  years  —  was  u  a  char- 
acter, and  he  would  like  to  sketch  him  "),  I  thought  I  should  have 
been  obliged  to  go  away.     However,  we  went  into  a  little  parlor 


148  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


where  the  funeral  party  was,  and  God  knows  it  was  miserable 
enough,  for  the  widow  and  children  were  crying  bitterly  in  one  cor- 
ner, and  the  other  mourners  —  mere  people  of  ceremony,  who  cared 
no  more  for  the  dead  man  than  the  hearse  did  — -  were  talking  quite 
coolly  and  carelessly  together  in  another ;  and  the  contrast  was  as 
painful  and  distressing  as  anything  I  ever  saw.  There  was  an  inde- 
pendent clergyman  present,  with  his  bands  on  and  a  Bible  under  his 

arm,  who,  as  soon  as  we  were  seated,  addressed thus,  in  a  loud, 

emphatic  voice :  "  Mr.  C ,  have  you  seen  a  paragraph  respecting 

our  departed  friend,  which  has  gone  the  round  of  the  morning  pa- 
pers? "     "  Yes,  sir,"  says  C ,  "  I  have,"  looking  very  hard  at  me 

the  while,  for  he  had  told  me  with  some  pride  coming  down  that  it 
was  his  composition.     "  Oh !  "  said  the  clergyman.      "  Then  you 

will  agree  with  me,  Mr.  C ,  that  it  is  not  only  an  insult  to  me, 

who  am  the  servant  of  the  Almighty,  but  an  insult  to  the  Almighty, 

whose  servant  I  am."     "How  is  that,  sir?"  said  C .     "It is 

stated,  Mr.  C ,  in  that  paragraph,"  says  the  minister,  "that  when 

Mr.  H failed  in  business  as  a  bookseller,  he  was  persuaded  by 

me  to  try  the  pulpit,  which  is  false,  incorrect,  unchristian,  in  a  man- 
ner blasphemous,  and  in  all  respects  contemptible.  Let  us  pray." 
With  which,  my  dear  Felton,  and  in  the  same  breath,  I  give  you  my 
word,  he  knelt  down,  as  we  all  did,  and  began  a  very  miserable 
jumble  of  an  extemporary  prayer.     I  was  really  penetrated  with 

sorrow  for  the  family,  but  when  C (upon  his  knees,  and  sobbing 

for  the  loss  of  an  old  friend)  whispered  me,  "  that  if  that  was  n't  a 
clergyman,  and  it  was  n't  a  funeral,  he  'd  have  punched  his  head,"  I 

felt  as  if  nothing  but  convulsions  could  possibly  relieve  me 

Faithfully  always,  my  dear  Felton, 

C.  D. 

Was  there  ever  such  a  genial,  jovial  creature  as  this 
<naster  of  humor !  When  we  read  his  friendly  epistles, 
we  cannot  help  wishing  he  had  written  letters  only,  as 
when  wre  read  his  novels  we  grudge  the  time  he  employed 
on  anything  else. 

Broadstairs,  Kent,  1st  September,  1843. 
My  dear  Felton  :  If  I  thought  it  in  the  nature  of  things  that 
you  and  I  could  ever  agree  on  paper,  touching  a  certain  Chuzzle- 

witian  question  whereupon  F tells  me  you  have  remarks  to 

make,  I  should  immediately  walk  into  the  same,  tooth  and  nail.  But 
as  I  don't,  I  won't.     Contenting  myself  with  this  prediction,  that 


DICKENS.  149 


one  of  these  years  and  days,  you  will  write  or  say  to  me,  "  My  dear 
Dickens,  you  were  right,  though  rough,  and  did  a  world  of  good, 
though  you  got  most  thoroughly  hated  for  it."  To  which  I  shall 
reply,  "  My  dear  Felton,  I  looked  a  long  way  off  and  not  immedi- 
ately under  my  nose."  ...  At  which  sentiment  you  will  laugh, 
and  I  shall  laugh ;  and  then  (for  I  foresee  this  will  all  happen  in 
my  land)  we  shall  call  for  another  pot  of  porter  and  two  or  three 
dozen  of  oysters. 

Now  don't  you  in  your  own  heart  and  soul  quarrel  with  me  for 
this  long  silence?  Not  half  so  much  as  I  quarrel  with  myself,  I 
know ;  but  if  you  could  read  half  the  letters  I  write  to  you  in  ima- 
gination, you  would  swear  by  me  for  the  best  of  correspondents. 
The  truth  is,  that  when  I  have  done  my  morning's  work,  down  goes 
my  pen,  and  from  that  minute  I  feel  it  a  positive  impossibility  to 
take  it  up  again,  until  imaginary  butchers  and  bakers  wave  me 
to  my  desk.  I  walk  about  brimful  of  letters,  facetious  descrip- 
tions, touching  morsels,  and  pathetic  friendships,  but  can't  for  the 
soul  of  me  uncork  myself.  The  post-office  is  my  rock  ahead.  My 
average  number  of  letters  that  must  be  written  every  day  is,  at  the 
least,  a  dozen.  And  you  could  no  more  know  what  I  was  writing 
to  you  spiritually,  from  the  perusal  of  the  bodily  thirteenth,  than  you 
could  tell  from  my  hat  what  was  going  on  in  my  head,  or  could  read 
my  heart  on  the  surface  of  my  flannel  waistcoat. 

This  is  a  little  fishing-place ;  intensely  quiet ;  built  on  a  cliff 
whereon  —  in  the  centre  of  a  tiny  semicircular  bay  —  our  house 
stands ;  the  sea  rolling  and  dashing  under  the  windows.  Seven  miles 
out  are  the  Goodwin  Sands,  (you  've  heard  of  the  Goodwin  Sands  ?) 
whence  floating  lights  perpetually  wink  after  dark,  as  if  they  were 
carrying  on  intrigues  with  the  servants.  Also  there  is  a  big  light- 
house called  the  North  Foreland  on  a  hill  behind  the  village,  a  severe 
parsonic  light,  which  reproves  the  young  and  giddy  floaters,  and 
stares  grimly  out  upon  the  sea.  Under  the  cliff  are  rare  good  sands, 
where  all  the  children  assemble  every  morning  and  throw  up  impos- 
sible fortifications,  which  the  sea  throws  down  again  at  high  water. 
Old  gentlemen  and  ancient  ladies  flirt  after  their  own  manner  in  two 
reading-rooms  and  on  a  great  many  scattered  seats  in  the  open  air. 
Other  old  gentlemen  look  all  day  through  telescopes  and  never  see 
anything.  In  a  bay-window  in  a  one  pair  sits  from  nine  o'clock  to 
one  a  gentleman  with  rather  long  hair  and  no  neckcloth,  who  writes 
and  grins  as  if  he  thought  he  were  very  funny  indeed.  His  name 
is  Boz.  At  one  he  disappears,  ana  presently  emerges  from  a  bath- 
ing-machine, and  may  be  seen  —  a  kind  of  salmon-colored  porpoise 


ISO  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


• — splashing  about  in  the  ocean.  After  that  he  may  be  seen  ir 
another  bay-window  on  the  ground-floor,  eating  a  strong  lunch;, 
after  that,  walking  a  dozen  miles  or  so,  or  lying  on  his  back  in  the 
sand  reading  a  book.  Nobody  bothers  him  unless  they  know  he  is 
disposed  to  be  talked  to;  and  I  am  told  he  is  very  comfortable 
indeed.  He  's  as  brown  as  a  berry,  and  they  do  say  is  a  small  for- 
tune to  the  innkeeper  who  sells  beer  and  cold  punch.  But  this  is 
mere  rumor.  Sometimes  he  goes  up  to  London  (eighty  miles,  or  so, 
away),  and  then  I  'm  told  there  is  a  sound  in  Lincoln  Inn  Fields  at 
night,  as  of  men  laughing,  together  with  a  clinking  of  knives  and 
forks  and  wine-glasses. 

I  never  shall  have  been  so  near  you  since  we  parted  aboard  the 
George  Washington  as  next  Tuesday.  Forster,  Maclise,  and  I,  and 
perhaps  Stanfield,  are  then  going  aboard  the  Cunard  steamer  at 
Liverpool,  to  bid  Macready  good  by,  and  bring  his  wife  away.  It 
will  be  a  very  hard  parting.  You  will  see  and  know  him  of  course. 
We  gave  him  a  splendid  dinner  last  Saturday  at  Richmond,  whereat 
I  presided  with  my  accustomed  grace.  He  is  one  of  the  noblest 
fellows  in  the  world,  and  I  would  give  a  great  deal  that  you  and 
I  should  sit  beside  each  other  to  see  him  play  Virginius,  Lear,  or 
Werner,  which  I  take  to  be,  every  way,  the  greatest  piece  of  exquisite 
perfection  that  his  lofty  art  is  capable  of  attaining.  His  Macbeth,  espe- 
cially the  last  act,  is  a  tremendous  reality ;  but  so  indeed  is  almost 
everything  he  does.  You  recollect,  perhaps,  that  he  was  the  guardian 
of  our  children  while  we  were  away.     I  love  him  dearly 

You  asked  me,  long  ago,  about  Maclise.  He  is  such  a  wayward 
fellow  in  his  subjects,  that  it  would  be  next  to  impossible  to  write 
such  an  article  as  you  were  thinking  of  about  him.  I  wish  you 
could  form  an  idea  of  his  genius.  One  of  these  days  a  book  will 
come  out,  "  Moore's  Irish  Melodies,"  entirely  illustrated  by  him,  on 
every  page.  When  it  comes,  I  '11  send  it  to  you.  You  will  have 
some  notion  of  him  then.  He  is  in  great  favor  with  the  queen,  and 
paints  secret  pictures  for  her  to  put  upon  her  husband's  table  on  the 
morning  of  his  birthday,  and  the  like.  But  if  he  has  a  care,  he 
will  leave  his  mark  on  more  enduring  things  than  palace  walls. 

And  so  L is  married.     I  remember  her  well,  and  could  draw 

her  portrait,  in  words,  to  the  life.  A  very  beautiful  and  gentle 
creature,  and  a  proper  love  for  a  poet.  My  cordial  remembrances 
and  congratulations.  Do  they  live  in  the  house  where  we  break- 
fasted ?  .  .  .  . 

I  very  often  dream  I  am  in  America  again  ;  but,  strange  to  say,  I 
never  dream  of  you.     I  am  always  endeavoring  to  get  home  in  dis- 


DICKENS.  151 


guise,  and  have  a  dreary  sense  of  the  distance.  Apropos  of  dreams, 
is  it  not  a  strange  thing  if  writers  of  fiction  never  dream  of  their 
own  creations;  recollecting,  I  suppose,  even  in  their  dreams,  that 
they  have  no  real  existence  ?  I  never  dreamed  of  any  of  my  own 
characters,  and  I  feel  it  so  impossible  that  I  would  wager  Scott 
never  did  of  his,  real  as  they  are.  I  had  a  good  piece  of  absurdity 
in  my  head  a  night  or  two  ago.  I  dreamed  that  somebody  was 
dead.  I  don't  know  who,  but  it's  not  to  the  purpose.  It  was  a 
private  gentleman,  and  a  particular  friend;  and  I  was  greatly  over- 
come when  the  news  was  broken  to  me  (very  delicately)  by  a  gen- 
tleman in  a  cocked  hat,  top  boots,  and  a  sheet.  Nothing  else. 
"  Good  God  !  "  I  said,  "  is  he  dead  ?  "  "  He  is  as  dead,  sir,"  rejoined 
the  gentleman,  "  as  a  door-nail.  But  we  must  all  die,  Mr.  Dickens; 
sooner  or  later,  my  dear  sir."  "  Ah !  "  I  said.  "  Yes,  to  be  sure. 
Very  true.  But  what  did  he  die  of?  "  The  gentleman  burst  into  a 
flood  of  tears,  and  said,  in  a  voice  broken  by  emotion  :  "  He  chris- 
tened his  youngest  child,  sir,  with  a  toasting-fork."  I  never  in  my 
life  was  so  affected  as  at  his  having  fallen  a  victim  to  this  complaint. 
It  carried  a  conviction  to  my  mind  that  he  never  could  have  re- 
covered. I  knew  that  it  was  the  most  interesting  and  fatal  malady 
in  the  world  ;  and  I  wrung  the  gentleman's  hand  in  a  convulsion 
of  respectful  admiration,  for  I  felt  that  this  explanation  did  equal 
honor  to  his  head  and  heart ! 

What  do  you  think  of  Mrs.  Gamp  ?  And  how  do  you  like  the 
undertaker  ?  I  have  a  fancy  that  they  are  in  your  way.  0  heaven  ! 
such  green  woods  as  I  was  rambling  among  down  in  Yorkshire, 
when  I  was  getting  that  done  last  Juby!  For  days  and  weeks  we 
never  saw  the  sky  but  through  green  boughs ;  and  all  day  long  I 
cantered  over  such  soft  moss  and  turf,  that  the  horse's  feet  scarcely 
made  a  sound  upon  it.  We  have  some  friends  in  that  part  of  the 
country  (close  to  Castle  Howard,  where  Lord  Morpeth's  father 
dwells  in  state,  in  his  park  indeed),  who  are  the  jolliest  of  the  jolly, 
keeping  a  big  old  country  house,  with  an  ale  cellar  something  larger 
than  a  reasonable  church,  and  everything  like  Goldsmith's  bear 
dances,  "  in  a  concatenation  accordingly."  Just  the  place  for  you, 
Felton !  We  performed  some  madnesses  there  in  the  way  of  forfeits, 
picnics,  rustic  games,  inspections  of  ancient  monasteries  at  midnight, 
when  the  moon  was  shining,  that  would  have  gone  to  your  heart, 
and,  as  Mr.  Weller  says,  "  come  out  on  the  other  side.".  .  .  . 

Write  soon,  my  dear  Felton ;  and  if  I  write  to  you  less  often  than 
I  would,  believe  that  my  affectionate  heart  is  with  you  always. 
Loves  and  regards  to  all  friends,  from  yours  ever  and  ever, 

Charles  DrcKENS. 


152  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

These  letters  grow  better  and  better  as  we  get  on. 
Ah  me !  and  to  think  we  shall  have  no  more  from  that 
delightful  pen  ! 

Detonshire  Terrace,  London,  January  2, 1844. 

My  very  dear  Felton  :  You  are  a  prophet,  and  had  best  retire 
from  business  straightway.  Yesterday  morning,  New  Year's  day, 
when  I  walked  into  my  little  workroom  after  breakfast,  and  was 
looking  out  of  window  at  the  snow  in  the  garden,  —  not  seeing  it 
particularly  well  in  consequence  of  some  staggering  suggestions  of 
last  night,  whereby  I  was  beset,  —  the  postman  came  to  the  door 
with  a  knock,  for  which  I  denounced  him  from  my  heart.  Seeing 
your  hand  upon  the  cover  of  a  letter  which  he  brought,  I  immediately 
blessed  him,  presented  him  with  a  glass  of  whiskey,  inquired  after 
his  family  (they  are  all  well),  and  opened  the  despatch  with  a  moist 
and  oystery  twinkle  in  my  eye.  And  on  the  very  day  from  which 
the  new  year  dates,  I  read  your  New  Year  congratulations  as  punc- 
tually as  if  you  lived  in  the  next  house.     Why  don't  you  ? 

Now,  if  instantly  on  the  receipt  of  this  you  will  send  a  free  and 
independent  citizen  down  to  the  Cunard  wharf  at  Boston,  you  will 
find  that  Captain  Hewett,  of  the  Britannia  steamship  (my  ship),  has 
a  small  parcel  for  Professor  Felton  of  Cambridge ;  and  in  that  parcel 
you  will  find  a  Christmas  Carol  in  prose ;  being  a  short  story  of 
Christmas  by  Charles  Dickens.  Over  which  Christmas  Carol  Charles 
Dickens  wept  and  laughed  and  wept  again,  and  excited  himself  in  a 
most  extraordinary  manner  in  the  composition  ;  and  thinking  where- 
of he  walked  about  the  black  streets  of  London,  fifteen  and  twenty 

miles,  many  a  night  when  all  the  sober  folks  had  gone  to  bed 

Its  success  is  most  prodigious.  And  by  every  post  all  manner  of 
strangers  write  all  manner  of  letters  to  him  about  their  homes  and 
hearths,  and  how  this  same  Carol  is  read  aloud  there,  and  kept  on  a 
little  shelf  by  itself.  Indeed,  it  is  the  greatest  success,  as  I  am  told, 
that  this  ruffian  and  rascal  has  ever  achieved. 

Forster  is  out  again  ;  and  if  he  don't  go  in  again,  after  the  manner 
in  which  we  have  been  keeping  Christmas,  he  must  be  very  strong 
indeed.  Such  dinings,  such  dancings,  such  conjurings,  such  blind- 
man's-buffings,  well  theatre-goings,  such  kissings-out  of  old  years 
and  kissings-in  of  new  ones,  never  took  place  in  these  parts  before. 
To  keep  the  Chuzzlewit  going,  and  do  this  little  book,  the  Carol,  in 
the  odd  times  between  two  parts  of  it,  was,  as  you  may  suppose, 
pretty  tight  work.  But  when  it  was  done  I  broke  out  like  a  mad- 
man.    And  if  you  could  have  seen  me  at  a  children's  party  at  Mac- 


DICKENS.  153 


ready's  the  other  night,  going  down  a  country  dance  with  Mrs.  M. 
you  would  have  thought  I  was  a  country  gentleman  of  independent 
property,  residing  on  a  tiptop  farm,  with  the  wind  blowing  straight 
in  my  face  every  day 

Your  friend,  Mr.  P ,  dined  with  us  one  day  (I  don't  know 

whether  I  told  you  this  before),  and  pleased  us  very  much.     Mr. 

C has  dined  here  once,  and  spent  an  evening  here.     I  have  not 

seen  him  lately,  though  he  has  called  twice  or  thrice ;  for  K 

being  unwell  and  I  busy,  we  have  not  been  visible  at  our  accus- 
tomed seasons.     I  wonder  whether  H has  fallen  in  your  way. 

Poor  H !     He  was  a  good  fellow,  and  has  the  most  grateful 

heart  I  ever  met  with.  Our  journeyings  seem  to  be  a  dream  now. 
Talking  of  dreams,  strange  thoughts  of  Italy  and  France,  and  may- 
be Germany,  are  springing  up  within  me  as  the  Chuzzlewit  clears 
off.  It 's  a  secret  I  have  hardly  breathed  to  any  one,  but  I  "  think" 
of  leaving  England  for  a  year,  next  midsummer,  hag  and  baggage, 
little  ones  and  all,  —  then  coming  out  with  such  a  story,  Felton,  all 
at  once,  no  parts,  sledge-hammer  blow. 

I  send  you  a  Manchester  paper,  as  you  desire.  The  report  is  not 
exactly  done,  but  very  well  done,  notwithstanding.  It  was  a  very 
splendid  sight,  I  assure  you,  and  an  awful-looking  audience.  I  am 
going  to  preside  at  a  similar  meeting  at  Liverpool  on  the  26th  of 
next  month,  and  on  my  way  home  I  may  be  obliged  to  preside  at 
another  at  Birmingham.  I  will  send  you  papers,  if  the  reports  be 
at  all  like  the  real  thing. 

I  wrote  to  Prescott  about  his  book,  with  which  I  was  perfectly 
charmed.  I  think  his  descriptions  masterly,  his  style  brilliant,  his 
purpose  manly  and  gallant  always.  The  introductory  account  of 
Aztec  civilization  impressed  me  exactly  as  it  impressed  you.  From 
beginning  to  end,  the  whole  history  is  enchanting  and  full  of  genius. 
I  only  wonder  that,  having  such  an  opportunity  of  illustrating  the 
doctrine  of  visible  judgments,  he  never  remarks,  when  Cortes  and 
his  men  tumble  the  idols  down  the  temple  steps  and  call  upon  the 
people  to  take  notice  that  their  gods  are  powerless  to  help  them- 
selves, that  possibly  if  some  intelligent  native  had  tumbled  down 
the  image  of  the  Virgin  or  patron  saint  after  them  nothing  very  re- 
markable might  have  ensued  in  consequence. 

Of  course  you  like  Macready.  Your  name  's  Felton.  I  wish  you 
could  see  him  play  Lear.  It  is  stupendously  terrible.  But  I  sup- 
pose he  would  be  slow  to  act  it  with  the  Boston  company. 

Hearty  remembrances  to  Sumner,  Longfellow,  Prescott,  and  all 
whom  you  know  I  love  to  remember.     Countless  happy  years  to 

7» 


154  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

you  and  yours,  my  dear  Felton,  and  some  instalment  of  them,  how- 
ever slight,  in  England,  in  the  loving  company  of 

The  Proscribed  One. 

O,  breathe  not  his  name. 


Here  is  a  portfolio  of  Dickens's  letters,  written  to  me 
from  time  to  time  during  the  past  ten  years.  As  long  ago 
as  the  spring  of  1858  I  began  to  press  him  very  hard  to 
come  to  America  and  give  us  a  course  of  readings  from  his 
works.  At  that  time  I  had  never  heard  him  read  in  pub- 
lic, but  the  fame  of  his  wonderful  performances  rendered 
me  eager  to  have  my  own  country  share  in  the  enjoyment 
of  them.  Being  in  London  in  the  summer  of  1859,  and 
dining  with  him  one  day  in  his  town  residence,  Tavistock 
House,  Tavistock  Square,  we  had  much  talk  in  a  corner 
of  his  library  about  coming  to  America.  I  thought  him 
over-sensitive  with  regard  to  his  reception  here,  and  I 
tried  to  remove  any  obstructions  that  might  exist  in  his 
mind  at  that  time  against  a  second  visit  across  the  Atlan- 
tic. I  followed  up  our  conversation  with  a  note  setting 
forth  the  certainty  of  his  success  among  his  Transatlantic 
friends,  and  urging  him  to  decide  on  a  visit  during  the 
year.  He  replied  to  me,  dating  from  "  Gad's  Hill  Place, 
Higham  by  Rochester,  Kent." 

"  I  write  to  you  from  my  little  Kentish  country  house,  on  the 
very  spot  where  Falstaff  ran  away. 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  how  very  much  obliged  to  you  I  feel  for  your 
kind  suggestion,  and  for  the  perfectly  frank  and  unaffected  manner 
in  which  it  is  conveyed  to  me. 

"  It  touches,  T  will  admit  to  you  frankly,  a  chord  that  has  several 
times  sounded  in  my  breast,  since  I  began  my  readings.  I  should 
very  much  like  to  read  in  America.  But  the  idea  is  a  mere  dream 
as  yet.  Several  strong  reasons  would  make  the  journey  difficult  to 
me,  and  —  even  were  they  overcome  —  I  would  never  make  it,  un- 
less I  had  great  general  reason  to  believe  that  the  American  people 
really  wanted  to  hear  me. 


DICKENS.  155 


"  Through  the  whole  of  this  autumn  I  shall  be  reading  in  various 
parts  of  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland.  I  mention  this,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  closing  paragraph  of  your  esteemed  favor. 

"  Allow  me  once  again  to  thank  you  most  heartily,  and  to  remain, 
"  Gratefully  and  faithfully  yours, 

"Charles  Dickens." 

Early  in  the  month  of  July,  1859,  I  spent  a  day  with 
him  in  his  beautiful  country  retreat  in  Kent.  He  drove 
me  about  the  leafy  lanes  in  his  basket  wagon,  pointing  out 
the  lovely  spots  belonging  to  his  friends,  and  ending  with 
a  visit  to  the  ruins  of  Eochester  Castle.  We  climbed  up 
the  time-worn  walls  and  leaned  out  of  the  ivied  windows, 
looking  into  the  various  apartments  below.  I  remember 
how  vividly  he  reproduced  a  probable  scene  in  the  great 
old  banqueting-room,  and  now  graphically  he  imagined 
the  life  of  ennui  and  every-day  tediousness  that  went  on 
in  those  lazy  old  times.  I  recall  his  fancy  picture  of  the 
dogs  stretched  out  before  the  fire,  sleeping  and  snoring  with 
their  masters.  That  day  he  seemed  to  revel  in  the  past, 
and  I  stood  by,  listening  almost  with  awe  to  his  impres- 
sive voice,  as  he  spoke  out  whole  chapters  of  a  romance 
destined  never  to  be  written.  On  our  way  back  to  Gad's 
Hill  Place,  he  stopped  in  the  road,  I  remember,  to  have  a 
crack  with  a  gentleman  who  he  told  me  was  a  son  of 
Sydney  Smith.  The  only  other  guest  at  his  table  that 
day  was  Wilkie  Collins  ;  and  after  dinner  we  three  went 
out  and  lay  down  on  the  grass,  while  Dickens  showed  off 
a  raven  that  was  hopping  about,  and  told  anecdotes  of 
the  bird  and  of  his  many  predecessors.  We  also  talked 
about  his  visiting  America,  I  putting  as  many  spokes  as 
possible  into  that  favorite  wheel  of  mine.  A  day  or 
two  after  I  returned  to  London  I  received  this  note  from 
him  :  — 

"  .  .  .  .  Only  to  say  that  I  heartily  enjoyed  our  day,  and  shall 
long  remember  it.  Also  that  I  have  been  perpetually  repeating  the 
experience  (of  a  more  tremendous  sort  in  the  way  of  ghastly 


156  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

comicality,  experience  there  is  none)  on  the  grass,  on  my  back. 
Also,  that  I  have  not  forgotten  Cobbett.  Also,  that  I  shall  trouble 
you  at  greater  length  when  the  mysterious  oracle,  of  New  York, 
pronounces. 

"  Wilkie  Collins  begs  me  to  report  that  he  declines  pale  horse, 
and  all  other  horse  exercise  —  and  all  exercise,  except  eating,  drink- 
ing, smoking,  and  sleeping  —  in  the  dog  days. 

"With  united  kind  regards,  believe  me  always  cordially  yours, 

"Charles  Dickens." 

An  agent  had  come  out  from  New  York  with  offers  to 
induce  him  to  arrange  for  a  speedy  visit  to  America,  and 
Dickens  was  then  waiting  to  see  the  man  who  had  been 
announced  as  on  his  way  to  him.  He  was  evidently  giv- 
ing the  subject  serious  consideration,  for  on  the  20th  of 
July  he  sends  me  this  note  :  — 

"  As  I  have  not  yet  heard  from  Mr. of  New  York,  I  begin  to 

think  it  likely  (or,  rather,  I  begin  to  think  it  more  likely  than  I 
thought  it  before)  that  he  has  not  backers  good  and  sufficient,  and 
that  his  '  mission  '  will  go  off.  It  is  possible  that  I  may  hear  from 
him  before  the  month  is  out,  and  I  shall  not  make  any  reading  ar- 
rangements until  it  has  come  to  a  close ;  but  I  do  not  regard  it  as 

being  very  probable  that  the  said will  appear  satisfactorily, 

either  in  the  flesh  or  the  spirit. 

"  Now,  considering  that  it  would  be  August  before  I  could  move 
in  the  matter,  that  it  would  be  indispensably  necessary  to  choose  some 
business  connection  and  have  some  business  arrangements  made  in 
America,  and  that  I  am  inclined  to  think  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
originate  and  complete  all  the  necessary  preparations  for  beginning 
in  October,  I  want  your  kind  advice  on  the  following  points  :  — 

"  1.  Suppose  I  postponed  the  idea  for  a  year. 

"  2.  Suppose  I  postponed  it  until  after  Christmas. 

"  3.  Suppose  I  sent  some  trusty  person  out  to  America  now;,  to 
negotiate  with  some  sound,  responsible,  trustworthy  man  of  busi- 
ness in  New  York,  accustomed  to  public  undertakings  of  such  a 
nature;  my  negotiator  being  fully  empowered  to  conclude  any 
arrangements  with  him  that  might  appear,  on  consultation,  best. 

"  Have  you  any  idea  of  any  such  person  to  whom  you  could 
recommend  me  ?  Or  of  any  such  agent  here  ?  I  only  want  to  see 
my  way  distinctly,  and  to  have  it  prepared  before  me,  out  in  th« 


DICKENS.  157 

States.     Now,  I  will  make  no  apology  for  troubling  you,  because  I 
thoroughly  rely  on  your  interest  and  kindness. 

"  I  am  at  Gad's  Hill,  except  on  Tuesdays  and  the  greater  part  of 
Wednesdays. 

"  With  kind  regards,  very  faitlifully  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

Various  notes  passed  between  us  after  this,  during 
my  stay  in  London  in  1859.  On  the  6th  of  August  he 
writes :  — 

"  I  have  considered  the  subject  in  every  way,  and  have  consulted 
with  the  few  friends  to  whom  I  ever  refer  my  doubts,  and  whose 
judgment  is  in  the  main  excellent.  I  have  (this  is  between  our- 
selves) come  to  the  conclusion  that  I  will  not  go  now. 

"  A  year  hence  I  may  revive  the  matter,  and  jrour  presence  in 
America  will  then  be  a  great  encouragement  and  assistance  to 
me.  I  shall  see  you  (at  least  I  count  upon  doing  so)  at  my  house 
in  town  before  you  turn  your  face  towards  the  locked-up  house ; 
and  we  will  then,  reversing  Macbeth,  '  proceed  further  in  this 
business.'  .... 

"  Believe  me  always  (and  here  I  forever  renounce  '  Mr.,'  as  hav- 
ing anything  whatever  to  do  with  our  communication,  and  as  being 
a  mere  preposterous  interloper), 

"  Faithfully  yours, 

'•  Charles  Dickens." 

When  I  arrived  in  Eome,  early  in  1860,  one  of  the  first 
letters  I  received  from  London  was  from  him.  The  pro- 
ject of  coming  to  America  was  constantly  before  him,  and 
he  wrote  to  me  that  he  should  have  a  great  deal  to  say 
when  I  came  back  to  England  in  the  spring ;  but  the  plan 
fell  through,  and  he  gave  up  all  hope  of  crossing  the  water 
again.  However,  I  did  not  let  the  matter  rest ;  and  when 
I  returned  home  I  did  not  cease,  year  after  year,  to  keep 
the  subject  open  in  my  communications  with  him.  He 
kept  a  watchful  eye  on  what  was  going  forward  in  Amer- 
ica, both  in  literature  and  politics.  During  the  war,  of 
course,  both  of  us  gave  up  our  correspondence  about  the 
readings.     He  was  actively  engaged  all  over  Great  Britain 


158  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

in  giving  his  marvellous  entertainments,  and  there  cer- 
tainly was  no  occasion  for  his  travelling  elsewhere.  In 
October,  1862,  I  sent  him  the  proof-sheets  of  an  article, 
that  was  soon  to  appear  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  on 
"  Blind  Tom,"  and  on  receipt  of  it  he  sent  me  a  letter, 
from  which  this  is  an  extract :  — 

"  I  have  read  that  affecting  paper  you  have  had  the  kindness  to 
send  me,  with  strong  interest  and  emotion.  You  may  readily  sup- 
pose that  I  have  been  most  glad  and  ready  to  avail  myself  of  your 
permission  to  print  it.  I  have  placed  it  in  our  Number  made  up  to- 
day, which  will  be  published  on  the  18th  of  this  month,  —  well  be- 
fore you,  — as  you  desire. 

"  Think  of  reading  in  America  ?  Lord  bless  you,  I  think  of  read- 
ing in  the  deepest  depth  of  the  lowest  crater  in  the  Moon,  on  my 
way  there! 

"  There  is  no  sun-picture  of  my  Falstaff  House  as  yet ;  but  it 
shall  be  done,  and  you  shall  have  it.  It  has  been  much  improved 
internally  since  you  saw  it 

"  I  expect  Macready  at  Gad's  Hill  on  Saturday.  You  know  that 
his  second  wife  (an  excellent  one)  presented  him  lately  with  a  little 
boy  ?  I  was  staying  with  him  for  a  day  or  two  last  winter,  and,  seiz- 
ing an  umbrella  when  he  had  the  audacity  to  tell  me  he  was  growing 
old,  made  at  him  with  Macduff's  defiance.  Upon  which  he  fell  into 
the  old  fierce  guard,  with  the  desperation  of  thirty  years  ago. 

"  Kind  remembrances  to  all  friends  who  kindly  remember  me. 
"  Ever  heartily  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

Every  time  I  had  occasion  to  write  to  him  after  the 
war,  I  stirred  up  the  subject  of  the  readings.  On  the  2d 
of  May,  1866,  he  says  :  — 

"  Your  letter  is  an  excessively  difficult  one  to  answer,  because  I 
really  do  not  know  that  any  sum  of  money  that  could  be  laid  down 
would  induce  me  to  cross  the  Atlantic  to  read.  Nor  do  I  think  it 
likely  that  any  one  on  your  side  of  the  great  water  can  be  prepared 
to  understand  the  state  of  the  case.  For  example,  I  am  now  just 
finishing  a  series  of  thirty  readings.  The  crowds  attending  thenv 
have  been  so  astounding,  and  the  relish  for  them  has  so  far  outgone 
all  previous  experience,  that  if  I  were  to  set  myself  the  task,  '  I  will 
make  such  or  such  a  sum  of  money  by  devoting  myself  to  readings 


DICKENS.  159 


for  a  certain  time,'  I  should  have  to  go  no  further  than  Bond  Street 
or  Regent  Street,  to  have  it  secured  to  me  in  a  day.  Therefore,  if  a 
specific  offer,  and  a  very  large  one  indeed,  were  made  to  me  from 
America,  I  should  naturally  ask  myself,  '  Why  go  through  this 
wear  and  tear,  merely  to  pluck  fruit  that  grows  on  every  bough  at 
home  ?  '  It  is  a  delightful  sensation  to  move  a  new  people  ;  but  I 
have  but  to  go  to  Paris,  and  I  find  the  brightest  people  in  the  world 
quite  ready  for  me.  I  say  thus  much  in  a  sort  of  desperate  en- 
deavor to  explain  myself  to  you.  I  can  put  no  price  upon  fifty 
readings  in  America,  because  I  do  not  know  that  any  possible  price 
could  pay  me  for  them.  And  I  really  cannot  say  to  any  one  dis- 
posed towards  the  enterprise,  '  Tempt  me,'  because  I  have  too 
strong  a  misgiving  that  he  cannot  in  the  nature  of  things  do  it. 

"  This  is  the  plain  truth.  If  any  distinct  proposal  be  submitted  to 
me,  I  will  give  it  a  distinct  answer.  But  the  chances  are  a  round 
thousand  to  one  that  the  answer  will  be  no,  and  therefore  I  feel 
bound  to  make  the  declaration  beforehand. 

"  .  .  .  .  This  place  has  been  greatly  improved  since  you  were 
here,  and  we  should  be  heartily  glad  if  you  and  she  could  see  it. 

"  Faithfully  yours  ever, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

On  the  16th  of  October  he  writes  :  — 

"  Although  I  perpetually  see  in  the  papers  that  I  am  coming  out 
with  a  new  serial,  I  assure  you  I  know  no  more  of  it  at  present.  I 
am  not  writing  (except  for  Christmas  number  of  'All  the  Year 
Round '),  and  am  going  to  begin,  in  the  middle  of  January,  a  series 
of  forty-two  readings.  Those  will  probably  occupy  me  until  Easter. 
Early  in  the  summer  I  hope  to  get  to  work  upon  a  story  that  I 
have  in  my  mind.  But  in  what  form  it  will  appear  I  do  not  yet 
know,  because  when  the  time  comes  I  shall  have  to  take  many  cir- 
cumstances into  consideration 

"  A  faint  outline  of  a  castle  in  the  air  always  dimly  hovers  be- 
tween me  and  Rochester,  in  the  great  hall  of  which  I  see  myself 
reading  to  American  audiences.  But  my  domestic  surroundings 
must  change  before  the  castle  takes  tangible  form.  And  perhaps  I ' 
may  change  first,  and  establish  a  castle  in  the  other  world.  So  no 
more  at  present. 

"  Believe  me  ever  faithfully  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

In  June,  1867,  things  begin  to  look  more  promising. 


160  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  I  find  in  one  of  his  letters,  dated  the  3d  of  that  month, 
some  good  news,  as  follows  :  — 

"  I  cannot  receive  your  pleasantest  of  notes,  without  assuring  you 
of  the  interest  and  gratification  that  /  feel  on  my  side  in  our  alli- 
ance. And  now  I  am  going  to  add  a  piece  of  intelligence  that  I 
hope  may  not  be  disagreeable. 

"  I  am  trying  hard  so  to  free  myself,  as  to  be  able  to  come  over  to 
read  this  next  winter  !  Whether  I  may  succeed  in  this  endeavor  or 
no  I  cannot  yet  say,  but  I  am  trying  hard.  So  in  the  mean  time 
don't  contradict  the  rumor.  In  the  course  of  a  few  mails  I  hope  to 
be  able  to  give  you  positive  and  definite  information  on  the  subject. 

"  My  daughter  (whom  I  shall  not  bring  if  I  come)  will  answer 
for  herself  by  and  by.  Understand  that  I  am  really  endeavoring 
tooth  and  nail  to  make  my  way  personally  to  the  American  public, 
and  that  no  light  obstacles  will  turn  me  aside,  now  that  my  hand 
is  in. 

"  My  dear  Fields,  faithfully  yours  always, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

This  was  followed  up  by  another  letter,  dated  the  13th, 
in  which  he  says  :  — 

"  I  have  this  morning  resolved  to  send  out  to  boston,  in  the  first 
week  in  August,  Mr.  Dolby,  the  secretary  and  manager  of  my  read- 
ings. He  is  profoundly  versed  in  the  business  of  those  delightful  in- 
tellectual feasts  (!),  and  will  come  straight  to  Ticknor  and  Fields,  and 
will  hold  solemn  council  with  them,  and  will  then  go  to  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Hartford,  Washington,  etc.,  etc.,  and  see  the  rooms  for 
himself,  and  make  his  estimates.  He  will  then  telegraph  to  me :  '  I 
see  my  way  to  such  and  such  results.  Shall  I  go  on  ?  '  If  I  reply, 
'  Yes,'  I  shall  stand  committed  to  begin  reading  in  America  with 
the  month  of  December.  If  I  reply,  '  No,'  it  will  be  because  I  do 
not  clearly  see  the  game  to  be  worth  so  large  a  candle.  In  either 
case  he  will  come  back  to  me. 

"  He  is  the  brother  of  Madame  Sainton  Dolby,  the  celebrated 
singer.  I  have  absolute  trust  in  him  and  a  great  regard  for  him. 
He  goes  with  me  everywhere  when  I  read,  and  manages  for  me  to 
perfection. 

"  We  mean  to  keep  all  this  strictly  secret,  as  I  beg  of  you  to  do, 
until  I  finally  decide  for  or  against.  I  am  beleaguered  by  every  kind 
of  speculator  in  such  things  on  your  side  of  the  water;  and  it  is 
tery  likely  that  they  would  take  th*  rooms  over  our  heads,  —  to 


DICKENS.  161 


charge  me  heavily  for  them,  —  or  would  set  on  foot  unheard-of  de- 
vices for  buying  up  the  tickets,  etc.,  etc.,  if  the  probabilities  oozed 
out.  This  is  exactly  how  the  case  stands  now,  and  I  confide  it  to 
you  within  a  couple  of  hours  after  having  so  far  resolved.  Dolby 
quite  understands  that  he  is  to  confide  in  you,  similarly,  without  a 
particle  of  reserve. 

"  Ever  faithfully  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

On  the  12th  of  July  he  says  :  — 

"  Our  letters  will  be  crossing  one  another  rarely !  I  have  received 
your  cordial  answer  to  my  first  notion  of  coming  out ;  but  there  has 

not  yet  been  time  for  me  to  hear  again 

"  With  kindest  regard  to  '  both  your  houses,'  public  and  private, 
"  Ever  faithfully  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

He  had  engaged  to  write  for  "  Our  Young  Folks  "  "  A 
Holiday  Romance,"  and  the  following  note,  dated  the  25th 
of  July,  refers  to  the  story :  — 

"  Your  note  of  the  12th  is  like  a  cordial  of  the  best  sort.  I  have 
taken  it  accordingly. 

"  Dolby  sails  in  the  Java  on  Saturday,  the  3d  of  next  month,  and 
will  come  direct  to  you.  You  will  find  him  a  frank  and  capital  fel- 
low. He  is  perfectly  acquainted  with  his  business  and  with  his 
chief,  and  may  be  trusted  without  a  grain  of  reserve. 

"I  hope  the  Americans  will  see  the  joke  of  'Holiday  Romance.' 
The  writing  seems  to  me  so  like  children's,  that  dull  folks  (on  any 
side  of  any  water)  might  perhaps  rate  it  accordingly !  I  should 
like  to  be  beside  you  when  you  read  it,  and  particularly  when  you 
read  the  Pirate's  story.  It  made  me  laugh  to  that  extent  that  my 
people  here  thought  I  was  out  of  my  wits,  until  I  gave  it  to  thetf 
to  read,  when  they  did  likewise. 

"  Ever  cordially  yours, 

"Charles  Dickins.'* 

On  the  3d  of  September  he  breaks  out  in  this  wise, 
Dolby  having  arrived  out  and  made  all  arrangements  for 
the  readings  :  — 

"  Your  cheering  letter  of  the  21st  of  August  arrived  here  this 
morning.  A  thousand  thanks  for  it.  I  begin  to  think  (nautically) 
that  I  '  head  west'ard.'  You  shall  hear  from  me  fully  and  finally 
as  soon  as  Dolby  shall  have  reported  personally. 


162  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

"  The  other  day  I  received  a  letter  from  Mr. of  New  York 

(who  came  over  in  the  winning  yacht,  and  described  the  voyage  in 
the  Times),  saying  he  would  much  like  to  see  me.  I  made  an 
appointment  in  London,  and  observed  that  when  he  did  see  me  he 
was  obviously  astonished.  While  I  was  sensible  that  the  magnifi- 
cence of  my  appearance  would  fully  account  for  his  being  overcome, 
I  nevertheless  angled  for  the  cause  of  his  surprise.  He  then  told 
me  that  there  was  a  paragraph  going  round  the  papers,  to  the  effect 
that  I  was  '  in  a  critical  state  of  health.'  I  asked  him  if  he  was  sure 
it  was  n't  '  cricketing '  state  of  health  ?  To  which  he  replied,  Quite. 
I  then  asked  him  down  here  to  dinner,  and  he  was  again  staggered 
by  finding  me  in  sporting  training;  also  much  amused. 

"  Yesterday's  and  to-day's  post  bring  me  this  unaccountable  para- 
graph from  hosts  of  uneasy  friends,  with  the  enormous  and  wonder- 
ful addition  that  '  eminent  surgeons '  are  sending  me  to  America  for 
'  cessation  from  literary  labor ' !  !  !  So  I  have  written  a  quiet  line  to 
the  Times,  certifying  to  my  own  state  of  health,  and  have  also 
begged  Dixon  to  do  the  like  in  the  Athenadum.  I  mention  the 
matter  to  you,  in  order  that  you  may  contradict,  from  me,  if  the 
nonsense  should  reach  America  unaccompanied  by  the  truth.  But 
I  suppose  that  the  New  York  Herald  will  probably  have  got  the 
latter  from  Mr. aforesaid 

"  Charles  Reade  and  Wilkie  Collins  are  here  ;  and  the  joke  of  the 
time  is  to  feel  my  pulse  when  I  appear  at  table,  and  also  to  inveigle 
innocent  messengers  to  come  over  to  the  summer-house,  where  I 
write  (the  place  is  quite  changed  since  you  were  here,  and  a  tunnel 
under  the  high  road  connects  this  shrubbery  with  the  front  garden), 
to  ask,  with  their  compliments,  how  I  find  myself  now. 

"  If  I  come  to  America  this  next  November,  even  you  can  hardly 
imagine  with  what  interest  I  shall  try  Copperfield  on  an  American 
audience,  or,  if  they  give  me  their  heart,  how  freely  and  fully  I 
shall  give  them  mine.  We  will  ask  Dolby  then  whether  he  ever 
heard  it  before. 

"  I  cannot  thank  you  enough  for  your  invaluable  help  to  Dolby. 
He  writes  that  at  every  turn  and  moment  the  sense  and  knowledge 
and  tact  of  Mr.  Osgood  are  inestimable  to  him. 

"  Ever,  my  dear  Fields,  faithfully  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

Here  is  a  little  note  dated  the  3d  of  October :  — 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  how  much  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  little. 
letter,  which  is  like  a  pleasant  voice  coming  across  the  Atlantic,  with 


DICKENS.  163 


that  domestic  welcome  in  it  which  has  no  substitute  on  earth.  If  you 
knew  how  strongly  I  am  inclined  to  allow  myself  the  pleasure  of 
staying  at  your  house,  you  would  look  upon  me  as  a  kind  of  ancient 
Roman  (which,  I  trust  in  Heaven,  I  am  not)  for  having  the  courage 
to  say  no.  But  if  I  gave  myself  that  gratification  in  the  begin- 
ning, I  could  scarcely  hope  to  get  on  in  the  hard  '  reading'  life,  with- 
out offending  some  kindly  disposed  and  hospitable  American  friend 
afterwards ;  whereas  if  I  observe  my  English  principle  on  such  oc- 
casions, of  having  no  abiding-place  but  an  hdtel,  and  stick  to  it  from 
the  first,  I  may  perhaps  count  on  being  consistently  uncomfortable. 
"  The  nightly  exertion  necessitates  meals  at  odd  hours,  silence  and 
rest  at  impossible  times  of  the  day,  a  general  Spartan  behavior  so 
utterly  inconsistent  with  my  nature,  that  if  you  were  to  give  me  a 
happy  inch,  I  should  take  an  ell,  and  frightfully  disappoint  you  in 
public.  I  don't  want  to  do  that,  if  I  can  help  it,  and  so  I  will  be 
good  in  spite  of  myself. 

"  Ever  your  affectionate  friend, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 

A  ridiculous  paragraph  in  the  papers  following  close  on 
the  public  announcement  that  Dickens  was  coming  to 
America  in  November,  drew  from  him  this  letter  to  me, 
dated  also  early  in  October  :  — 

"  I  hope  the  telegraph  clerks  did  not  mutilate  out  of  recognition 
or  reasonable  guess  the  words  I  added  to  Dolby's  last  telegram  to 
Boston.  '  Tribune  London  correspondent  totally  false.'  Not  only  is 
there  not  a  word  of  truth  in  the  pretended  conversation,  but  it  is  so 
absurdly  unlike  me  that  I  cannot  suppose  it  to  be  even  invented  by 
any  one  who  ever  heard  me  exchange  a  word  with  mortal  creature. 
For  twenty  years  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  I  have  never  made 
any  other  allusion  to  the  republication  of  my  books  in  America 
than  the  good-humored  remark,  '  that  if  there  had  been  interna- 
tional copyright  between  England  and  the  States,  I  should  have 
been  a  man  of  very  large  fortune,  instead  of  a  man  of  moderate 
savings,  always  supporting  a  very  expensive  public  position.'  Nor 
have  I  ever  been  such  a  fool  as  to  charge  the  absence  of  interna- 
tional copyright  upon  individuals.  Nor  have  I  ever  been  so  un- 
generous as  to  disguise  or  suppress  the  fact  that  I  have  received 
handsome  sums  for  advance  sheets.  When  I  was  in  the  States,  I 
said  what  I  had  to  say  on  the  question,  and  there  an  end.  I  am 
absolutely  certain  that  I  have  never  since  expressed  myself,  even 


1 64  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

with  soreness,  on  the  subject.  Reverting  to  the  preposterous  fabri- 
cation of  the  London  correspondent,  the  statement  that  I  ever 
talked  about  'these  fellows'  who  republished  my  books,  or  pre- 
tended to  know  (what  I  don't  know  at  this  instant)  who  made 
how  much  out  of  them,  or  ever  talked  of  their  sending  me  '  con- 
science money,'  is  as  grossly  and  completely  false  as  the  statement 
that  I  ever  said  anything  to  the  effect  that  I  could  not  be  expected 
to  have  an  interest  in  the  American  people.  And  nothing  can  by 
any  possibility  be  falser  than  that.  Again  and  again  in  these  pages 
(All  the  Year  Round)  I  have  expressed  my  interest  in  them.  You 
will  see  it  in  the  '  Child's  History  of  England.'  You  will  see  it  in 
the  last  Preface  to  '  American  Notes.'  Every  American  who  has 
ever  spoken  with  me  in  London,  Paris,  or  where  not,  knows 
whether  I  have  frankly  said,  '  You  could  have  no  better  introduction 
to  me  than  your  country.'  And  for  years  and  years  when  I  have 
been  asked  about  reading  in  America,  my  invariable  reply  has  been, 
'  I  have  so  many  friends  there,  and  constantly  receive  so  many 
earnest  letters  from  personally  unknown  readers  there,  that,  but  for 
domestic  reasons,  I  would  go  to-morrow.'  I  think  I  must,  in  the 
confidential  intercourse  between  you  and  me,  have  written  you  to 
this  effect  more  than  once. 

"  The  statement  of  the  London  correspondent  from  beginning  to 
end  is  false.  It  is  false  in  the  letter  and  false  in  the  spirit.  He 
may  have  been  misinformed,  and  the  statement  may  not  have 
originated  with  him.  With  whomsoever  it  originated,  it  never  origi- 
nated with  me,  and  consequently  is  false.  More  than  enough 
about  it. 

"  As  I  hope  to  see  you  so  soon,  my  dear  Fields,  and  as  I  am  busily 
at  work  on  the  Christmas  number,  I  will  not  make  this  a  longer 
letter  than  I  can  help.  I  thank  you  most  heartily  for  your  proffered 
hospitality,  and  need  not  tell  you  that  if  I  went  to  any  friend's 
house  in  America,  I  would  go  to  yours.  But  the  readings  are  very 
hard  work,  and  I  think  I  cannot  do  better  than  observe  the  rule  on 
that  side  of  the  Atlantic  which  I  observe  on  this,  —  of  never,  under 
such  circumstances,  going  to  a  friend's  house,  but  always  staying  at 
a  hotel.  I  am  able  to  observe  it  here,  by  being  consistent  and  never 
breaking  it.  If  I  am  equally  consistent  there,  I  can  (I  hope)  offend 
no  one. 

"  Dolby  sends  his  love  to  you  and  all  his  friends  (as  I  do),  and  is 
girding  up  his  loins  vigorously. 

"Ever,  my  dear  Fields,  heartily  and  affectionately  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens.' 


DICKENS.  165 


Before  sailing  in  November  he  sent  off  this  note  to  me 
from  the  office  of  All  the  Year  Bound :  — 

"  I  received  your  more  than  acceptable  letter  yesterday  morning, 
and  consequently  am  able  to  send  you  this  line  of  acknowledgment 
by  the  next  mail.  Please  God  we  will  have  that  walk  among  the 
autumn  leaves,  before  the  readings  set  in. 

"  You  may  have  heard  from  Dolby  that  a  gorgeous  repast  is  to  be 
given  to  me  to-morrow,  and  that  it  is  expected  to  be  a  notable 
demonstration.  I  shall  try.  in  what  I  say,  to  state  my  American 
case  exactly.  I  have  a  strong  hope  and  belief  that  within  the  com- 
pass of  a  couple  of  minutes  or  so  I  can  put  it,  with  perfect  truthful- 
ness, in  the  light  that  my  American  friends  would  be  best  pleased 
to  see  me  place  it  in.     Either  so,  or  my  instinct  is  at  fault. 

"  My  daughters  and  their  aunt  unite  with  me  in  kindest  loves. 
As  I  write,  a  shrill  prolongation  of  the  message  comes  in  from  the 
next  room,  '  Tell  them  to  take  care  of  you-u-u  !  ' 

"  Tell  Longfellow,  with  my  love,  that  I  am  charged  by  Forster 
(who  has  been  very  ill  of  diffused  gout  and  bronchitis)  with  a  copy 
of  his  Sir  John  Eliot. 

"  I  will  bring  you  out  the  early  proof  of  the  Christmas  number. 
We  publish  it  here  on  the  12th  of  December.  I  am  planning  it 
(No  Thoroughfare)  out  into  a  play  for  Wilkie  Collins  to  manipulate 
after  I  sail,  and  have  arranged  for  Fechter  to  go  to  the  Adelphi 
Theatre  and  play  a  Swiss  in  it.  It  will  be  brought  out  the  day 
after  Christmas  day. 

"  Here,  at  Boston  Wharf,  and  everywhere  else, 

"  Yours  heartily  and  affectionately, 

"  C.  D." 

On  a  blustering  evening  in  November,  1867,  Dickens 
arrived  in  Boston  Harbor,  on  his  second  visit  to  America. 
A  few  of  his  friends,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Collector 
of  the  port,  steamed  down  in  the  custom-house  boat  to 
welcome  him.  It  was  pitch  dark  before  we  sighted  the 
Cuba  and  ran  alongside.  The  great  steamer  stopped  for 
a  few  minutes  to  take  us  on  board,  and  Dickens's  cheery- 
voice  greeted  me  before  I  bad  time  to  distinguish  him  on 
the  deck  of  the  vessel.  The  news  of  the  excitement  the 
sale  of  the  tickets  to  his  readings  had  occasioned  had  been 
carried  to  him  by  the  pilot,  twenty  miles  out.     He  was  in 


166  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

capital  spirits  over  the  cheerful  account  that  all  was  going 
on  so  well,  and  I  thought  he  never  looked  in  better  health. 
The  voyage  had  been  a  good  one,  and  the  ten  days'  rest 
on  shipboard  had  strengthened  him  amazingly  he  said. 
As  we  were  told  that  a  crowd  had  assembled  in  East  Bos- 
ton, we  took  him  in  our  little  tug  and  landed  him  safely 
at  Lomj  Wharf  in  Boston,  where  carriages  were  in  waiting. 
Booms  had  been  taken  for  him  at  the  Parker  House,  and 
in  half  an  hour  after  he  had  reached  the  hotel  he  was  sit- 
ting down  to  dinner  with  half  a  dozen  friends,  quite  pre- 
pared, he  said,  to  give  the  first  reading  in  America  that 
very  night,  if  desirable.  Assurances  that  the  kindest  feel- 
ings towards  him  existed  everywhere  put  him  in  great 
spirits,  and  he  seemed  happy  to  be  among  us.  On  Sun- 
day he  visited  the  School  Ship  and  said  a  few  words  of 
encouragement  and  counsel  to  the  boys.  He  began  his 
long  walks  at  once,  and  girded  himself  up  for  the  hard 
winter's  work  before  him.  Steadily  refusing  all  invita- 
tions to  go  out  during  the  weeks  he  was  reading,  he  only 
went  into  one  other  house  besides  the  Parker,  habitually, 
during  his  stay  in  Boston.  Every  one  who  was  present 
remembers  the  delighted  crowds  that  assembled  nightly 
in  the  Tremont  Temple,  and  no  one  who  heard  Dickens, 
during  that  eventful  month  of  December,  will  forget  the 
sensation  produced  by  the  great  author,  actor,  and  reader. 
Hazlitt  says  of  Kean's  Othello,  "  The  tone  of  voice  in 
which  he  delivered  the  beautiful  apostrophe  'Then,  0, 
farewell,'  struck  on  the  heart  like  the  swelling  notes  of 
some  divine  music,  like  the  sound  of  years  of  departed 
happiness."  There  were  thrills  of  pathos  in  Dickens's 
readings  (of  David  Copperfield,  for  instance)  winch  Kean 
himself  never  surpassed  in  dramatic  effect. 

He  went  from  Boston  to  New  York,  carrying  with  him  a 
severe  catarrh  contracted  in  our  climate.  In  reality  much 
of  the  time  during  his  reading  in  Boston  he  was  quite  ill 


DJCKENS.  167 


from  the  effects  of  the  disease,  but  he  fought  courageously 
against  its  effects,  and  always  came  up,  on  the  night  of 
the  reading,  all  right.  Several  times  I  feared  he  would 
be  obliged  to  postpone  the  readings,  and  I  am  sure  almost 
any  one  else  would  have  felt  compelled  to  do  so  ;  but  he 
declared  no  man  had  a  right  to  break  an  engagement 
with  the  public,  if  he  were  able  to  be  out  of  bed.  His 
spirit  was  wonderful,  and,  although  he  lost  all  appe- 
tite and  could  partake  of  very  little  food,  he  was  always 
cheerful  and  ready  for  his  work  when  the  evening  came 
round.  Every  morning  his  table  was  covered  with  invita- 
tions to  dinners  and  all  sorts  of  entertainments,  but  he 
said,  "  I  came  for  hard  work,  and  I  must  try  to  fulfil  the 
expectations  of  the  American  public."  He  did  accept  a 
dinner  which  was  tendered  to  him  by  some  of  his  literary 
friends  in  Boston  ;  but  the  day  before  it  was  to  come  off  he 
was  so  ill  he  felt  obliged  to  ask  that  the  banquet  might  be 
given  up.  The  strain  upon  his  strength  and  nerves  was 
very  great  during  all  the  months  he  remained  in  the 
country,  and  only  a  man  of  iron  will  could  have  accom- 
plished all  he  did.  And  here  let  me  say,  that  although 
he  was  accustomed  to  talk  and  write  a  great  deal  about 
eating  and  drinking,  I  have  rarely  seen  a  man  eat  and 
drink  less.  He  liked  to  dilate  in  imagination  over  the 
brewing  of  a  bowl  of  punch,  but  I  always  noticed  that 
when  the  punch  was  ready,  he  drank  less  of  it  than  any 
one  who  might  be  present.  It  was  the  sentiment  of  the 
thing  and  not  the  thing  itself  that  engaged  his  attention. 
He  liked  to  have  a  little  supper  every  night  after  a  read- 
ing, and  have  three  or  four  friends  round  the  table  with 
him,  but  he  only  pecked  at  the  viands  as  a  bird  might  do, 
and  I  scarcely  saw  him  eat  a  hearty  meal  during  his  whole 
stay  in  the  country.  Both  at  Parker's  Hotel  in  Boston, 
and  at  the  Westminster  in  New  York,  everything  was 
arranged  by  the  proprietors  for  his  comfort  and  happiness, 


1 68  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  tempting  dishes  to  pique  his  invalid  appetite  were 
sent  up  at  different  hours  of  the  day,  with  the  hope  that 
he  might  be  induced  to  try  unwonted  things  and  get  up 
again  the  habit  of  eating  more ;  but  the  influenza,  that 
seized  him  with  such  masterful  power,  held  the  strong 
man  down  till  he  left  the  country. 

One  of  the  first  letters  I  had  from  him,  after  he  had 
begun  his  reading  tour,  was  dated  from  the  Westminster 
Hotel  in  New  York,  on  the  15th  of  January,  1868. 

My  dear  Fields:  On  coming  back  from  Philadelphia  just  now 
(three  o'clock)  I  was  welcomed  by  your  cordial  letter.  It  was  a 
delightful  welcome  and  did  me  a  world  of  good. 

The  cold  remains  just  as  it  was  (beastly),  and  where  it  was  (in 
my  head).  We  have  left  off  referring  to  the  hateful  subject,  except 
in  emphatic  sniffs  on  my  part,  convulsive  wheezes,  and  resounding 
sneezes. 

The  Philadelphia  audience  ready  and  bright.  I  think  they  un- 
derstood the  Carol  better  than  Copperfield,  but  they  were  bright 
and  responsive  as  to  both.  They  also  highly  appreciated  your 
friend  Mr.  Jack  Hopkins.  A  most  excellent  hotel  there,  and  every- 
thing satisfactory.  While  on  the  subject  of  satisfaction,  I  know 
you  will  be  pleased  to  hear  that  a  long  run  is  confidently  expected 
for  the  No  Thoroughfare  drama.  Although  the  piece  is  well  cast 
and  well  played,  my  letters  tell  me  that  Fechter  is  so  remarkably 
fine  as  to  play  down  the  whole  company.  The  Times,  in  its  account 
of  it,  said  that  "  Mr.  Fechter  "  (in  the  Swiss  mountain  scene,  and  in 
the  Swiss  Hotel)  "  was  practically  alone  upon  the  stage."  It  is 
splendidly  got  up,  and  the  Mountain  Pass  (I  planned  it  with  the 
scene-painter)  was  loudly  cheered  by  the  whole  house.  Of  course 
I  knew  that  Fechter  would  tear  himself  to  pieces  rather  than  fall 
short,  but  I  was  not  prepared  for  his  contriving  to  get  the  pity  and 
gympathy  of  the  audience  out  of  his  passionate  love  for  Marguerite. 

My  dear  fellow,  you  cannot  miss  me  more  than  I  miss  you  and 
yours.  And  Heaven  knows  how  gladly  I  would  substitute  Boston 
for  Chicago,  Detroit,  and  Co. !  But  the  tour  is  fast  shaping  itself  out 
into  its  last  details,  and  we  must  remember  that  there  is  a  clear 
fortnight  in  Boston,  not  counting  the  four  Farewells.  I  look  for- 
ward to  that  fortnight  as  a  radiant  landing-place  in  the  series 

Rash  youth !     No  presumptuous  hand  should  try  to  make  the 


DICKENS.  169 

punch,  except  in  the  presence  of  the  hoary  sage  who  pens  these 
lines.  With  him  on  the  spot  to  perceive  and  avert  impending  fail- 
ure, with  timely  words  of  wisdom  to  arrest  the  erring  hand  and 
curb  the  straying  judgment,  and,  with  such  gentle  expressions  of 
encouragement  as  his  stern  experience  may  justify,  to  cheer  the 
aspirant  with  faint  hopes  of  future  excellence, — with  these  con- 
ditions observed,  the  daring  mind  may  scale  the  heights  of  sugar 
and  contemplate  the  depths  of  lemon.     Otherwise  not. 

Dolby  is  at  Washington,  and  will  return  in  the  night.     is 

on  guard.  He  made  a  most  brilliant  appearance  before  the  Phila- 
delphia public,  and  looked  hard  at  them.  The  mastery  of  his  eye 
diverted  their  attention  from  his  boots:  charming  in  themselves,  but 
(unfortunately)  two  left  ones. 

I  send  my  hearty  and  enduring  love.  Your  kindness  to  the 
British  Wanderer  is  deeply  inscribed  in  his  heart. 

When  I  think  of  L 's  story  about  Dr.   Webster,  I  feel  like 

the  lady  in  Nickleby  who  :'  has  had  a  sensation  of  alternate  cold 
and  biling  water  running  down  her  back  ever  since." 

Ever,  my  dear  Fields,  your  affectionate  friend, 

CD. 

His  birthday,  7th  of  February,  was  spent  in  Washing- 
ton, and  on  the  9th  of  the  month  he  sent  this  little  note 
from  Baltimore  :  —  • 

Baltimore,  Sunday,  February  9, 1868. 

My  dear  Fields  :  I  thank  you  heartily  for  your  pleasant  note  (I 
can  scarcely  tell  you  how  pleasant  it  was  to  receive  the  same)  and 
for  the  beautiful  flowers  that  you  sent  me  on  my  birthday.  For 
which  —  and  much  more  —  my  loving  thanks  to  both. 

In  consequence  of  the  Washington  papers  having  referred  to  the 
august  7th  of  this  month,  my  room  was  on  that  day  a  blooming 
garden.  Nor  were  flowers  alone  represented  there.  The  silver- 
smith, the  goldsmith,  the  landscape-painter,  all  sent  in  their  contri- 
butions. After  the  reading  was  done  at  night,  the  whole  audience 
rose ;  and  it  was  spontaneous,  hearty,  and  affecting. 

I  was  very  much  surprised  by  the  President's  face  and  manner. 
It  is,  in  its  way,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  faces  I  have  ever  seen. 
Not  imaginative,  but  very  powerful  in  its  firmness  (or  perhaps  ob- 
stinacy), strength  of  will,  and  steadiness  of  purpose.  There  is  a 
reticence  in  it  too,  curiously  at  variance  with  that  first  unfortunate 
speech  of  his.  A  man  not  to  be  turned  or  trifled  with.  A  man  (I 
should  say)  who  must  be  killed  to  be  got  out  of  the  way.  His 
8 


170  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

manners,  perfectly  composed.  We  looked  at  one  another  pretty 
hard.  There  was  an  air  of  chronic  anxiety  upon  him.  But  not  a 
crease  or  a  ruffle  in  his  dress,  and  his  papers  were  as  composed  as 
himself.  (Mr.  Thornton  was  going  in  to  dehver  his  credentials,  im- 
mediately afterwards.) 

This  day  fortnight  will  find  me,  please  God,  in  my  "  native  Bos- 
ton."    I  wish  I  were  there  to-day. 

Ever,  my  dear  Fields,  your  affectionate  friend, 

Charles   Dickens, 

Chairman  Missionary  Society. 

When  he  returned  to  Boston  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
month,  after  his  fatiguing  campaign  in  New  York,  Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore,  and  Washington,  he  seemed  far  from 
well,  and  one  afternoon  sent  round  from  the  Parker  House 
to  me  this  little  note,  explaining  why  he  could  not  go  out 
on  our  accustomed  walk. 

"  I  have  been  terrifying  Dolby  out  of  his  wits,  by  setting  in  for  a 
paroxysm  of  sneezing,  and  it  would  be  madness  in  me,  with  such  a 
•cold,  and  on  such  a  night,  and  with  to-morrow's  reading  before  me, 
to  go  out.  I  need  not  add  that  I  shall  be  heartily  glad  to  see  you 
if  you  have  time.  Many  thanks  for  the  Life  and  Letters  of  Wilder 
Dwight.  I  shall  "  save  up "  that  book,  to  read  on  the  passage 
home.  After  turning  over  the  leaves,  I  have  shut  it  up  and  put  it 
away ;  for  I  am  a  great  reader  at  sea,  and  wish  to  reserve  the  in- 
terest that  I  find  awaiting  me  in  the  personal  following  of  the  sad 
war.  Good  God,  when  one  stands  among  the  hearths  that  war  lias 
broken,  what  an  awful  consideration  it  is  that  such  a  tremendous 
evil  must  be  sometimes ! 

"  Ever  affectionately  yours, 

"  Charles  Dickens." 


I  will  dispose  here  of  the  question  often  asked  me  by  cor- 
respondents, and  lately  renewed  in  many  epistles,  "  Was 
Charles  Dickens  a  believer  in  our  Saviour's  life  and  teach- 
ings ? "  Persons  addressing  to  me  such  inquiries  must 
be  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  works  of  the  great  author, 
whom  they  endeavor  by  implication  to  place  among  the 
"  Unbelievers."     If  anywhere,  out   of  the   Bible,  God's 


DICKENS.  171 


goodness  and  mercy  are  solemnly  commended  to  the 
world's  attention,  it  is  in  the  pages  of  Dickens.  I  had 
supposed  that  these  written  words  of  his,  which  have 
been  so  extensively  copied  both  in  Europe  and  America, 
from  his  last  will  and  testament,  dated  the  12th  of  May, 
1869,  would  forever  remain  an  emphatic  testimony  to  his 
Christian  faith  :  — 

"  I  commit  my  soul  to  the  mercy  of  Cod,  through  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and  I  exhort  my  dear  children  humbly  to  try 
to  guide  themselves  by  the  teachings  of  the  New  Testament." 

I  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to  bring  to  the  knowledge 
of  all  who  doubt  the  Christian  character  of  Charles  Dick- 
ens certain  other  memorable  words  of  his,  written  years 
ago,  with  reference  to  Christmas.  They  are  not  as  famil- 
iar as  many  beautiful  things  from  the  same  pen  on  the 
same  subject,  for  the  paper  which  enshrines  them  has  not 
as  yet  been  collected  among  his  authorized  works.  Listen 
to  these  loving  words  in  which  the  Christian  writer  has 
embodied  the  life  of  his  Saviour :  — 

"  Hark !  the  Waits  are  playing,  and  they  break  my  childish  sleep  I 
What  images  do  I  associate  with  the  Christmas  music  as  I  see  them 
set  forth  on  the  Christmas  tree?  Known  before  all  others,  keeping 
far  apart  from  all  the  others,  they  gather  round  my  little  bed.  An 
angel,  speaking  to  a  group  of  shepherds  in  a  field  ;  some  travellers, 
with  eyes  uplifted,  following  a  star ;  a  baby  in  a  manger  ;  a  child  in 
a  spacious  temple,  talking  with  grave  men;  a  solemn  figure  with  a 
mild  and  beautiful  face,  raising  a  dead  girl  by  the  hand ;  again,  near 
a  city  gate,  calling  back  the  son  of  a  widow,  on  his  bier,  to  life ;  a 
crowd  of  people  looking  through  the  opened  roof  of  a  chamber 
where  he  sits,  and  letting  down  a  sick  person  on  a  bed,  with  ropes ; 
the  same  in  a  tempest,  walking  on  the  water  to  a  ship ;  again,  on  a 
sea-shore,  teaching  a  great  multitude ;  again,  with  a  child  upon  his 
knee,  and  other  children  round  ;  again,  restoring  sight  to  the  blind, 
speech  to  the  dumb,  hearing  to  the  deaf,  health  to  the  sick,  strength 
to  the  lame,  knowledge  to  the  ignorant ;  again,  dying  upon  a  cross, 
watched  by  armed  soldiers,  a  thick  darkness  coming  on,  the  earth 
beginning  to  shake,  and  only  one  voice  heard,  — '  Forgive  them,  for 
they  know  not  what  they  do !  '" 


172  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

The  writer  of  these  pages  begs  to  say  here,  most  respect- 
fully and  emphatically,  that  he  will  not  feel  himself  bound, 
in  future,  to  reply  to  any  inquiries,  from  however  well- 
meaning  correspondents,  as  to  whether  Charles  Dickens 
was  an  "  Unbeliever,"  or  a  "  Unitarian,"  or  an  "  Episcopa- 
lian," or  whether  "  he  ever  went  to  church  in  his  life,"  or 
"used  improper  language,"  or  "drank  enough  to  hurt 
him."  He  was  human,  very  human,  but  he  was  no  scoffer 
or  doubter.  His  religion  was  of  the  heart,  and  his  faith 
beyond  questioning.  He  taught  the  world,  said  Dean 
Stanley  over  his  new-made  grave  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
great  lessons  of  "the  eternal  value  of  generosity,  of  pur- 
ity, of  kindness,  and  of  unselfishness,"  and  by  his  fruits 
he  shall  be  known  of  all  men. 

Let  me  commend  to  the  attention  of  my  numerous 
nameless  correspondents,  who  have  attempted  to  soil  the 
moral  character  of  Dickens,  the  following  little  incident, 
related  to  me  by  himself,  during  a  summer-evening  walk 
among  the  Kentish  meadows,  a  few  months  before  he 
died.  I  will  try  to  tell  the  story,  if  possible,  as  simply 
and  naturally  as  he  told  it  to  me. 

"  I  chanced  to  be  travelling  some  years  ago,"  he  said, 
"  in  a  railroad  carriage  between  Liverpool  and  London. 
Beside  myself  there  were  two  ladies  and  a  gentleman 
occupying  the  carriage.  We  happened  to  be  all  strangers 
to  each  other,  but  I  noticed  at  once  that  a  clergyman  was 
of  the  party.  I  was  occupied  with  a  ponderous  article  in 
the  '  Times,'  when  the  sound  of  my  own  name  drew  my 
attention  to  the  fact  that  a  conversation  was  going  for- 
ward among  the  three  other  persons  in  the  carriage  with 
reference  to  myself  and  my  books.  One  of  the  ladies 
was  perusing  '  Bleak  House,'  then  lately  published,  and 
the  clergyman  had  commenced  a  conversation  with  the 
ladies  by  asking  what  book  they  were  reading.  On  being 
told  the  author's  name  and  the  title  of  the  book,  he  ex- 


DICKENS.  173 


pressed  himself  greatly  grieved  that  any  lady  in  England 
should  be  willing  to  take  up  the  writings  of  so  vile  a 
character  as  Charles  Dickens.  Both  the  ladies  showed 
great  surprise  at  the  low  estimate  the  clergyman  put  upon 
an  author  whom  they  had  been  accustomed  to  read,  to 
say  the  least,  with  a  certain  degree  of  pleasure.  They 
were  evidently  much  shocked  at  what  the  man  said  of 
the  immoral  tendency  of  these  books,  which  they  seemed 
never  before  to  have  suspected ;  but  when  he  attacked 
the  author's  private  character,  and  told  monstrous  stories 
of  his  immoralities  in  every  direction,  the  volume  was 
shut  up  and  consigned  to  the  dark  pockets  of  a  travelling 
bag.  I  listened  in  wonder  and  astonishment,  behind  my 
newspaper,  to  stories  of  myself,  which  if  they  had  been 
true  would  have  consigned  any  man  to  a  prison  for  life. 
After  my  fictitious  biographer  had  occupied  himself  for 
nearly  an  hour  with  the  eloquent  recital  of  my  delin- 
quencies and  crimes,  I  very  quietly  joined  in  the  conver- 
sation. Of  course  I  began  by  modestly  doubting  somf 
statements  which  I  had  just  heard,  touching  the  author 
of  '  Bleak  House,'  and  other  unimportant  works  of  a 
similar  character.  The  man  stared  at  me,  and  evidently 
considered  my  appearance  on  the  conversational  stage  an 
intrusion  and  an  impertinence.  '  You  seem  to  speak,'  I 
said,  '  from  personal  knowledge  of  Mr.  Dickens.  Are  you 
acquainted  with  him  ? '  He  rather  evaded  the  question, 
but,  following  him  up  closely,  I  compelled  him  to  say  that 
he  had  been  talking,  not  from  his  own  knowledge  of  the 
author  in  question  ;  but  he  said  he  knew  for  a  certainty 
that  every  statement  he  had  made  was  a  true  one.  I 
then  became  more  earnest  in  my  inquiries  for  proofs, 
which  he  arrogantly  declined  giving.  The  ladies  sat  by 
in  silence,  listening  intently  to  what  was  going  forward. 
An  author  they  had  been  accustomed  to  read  for  amuse- 


ment had  been  traduced  for  the  first  time  in  their  hearingj 


174  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  they  were  waiting  to  learn  what  I  had  to  say  in 
refutation  of  the  clergyman's  charges.  I  was  taking  up 
his  vile  stories,  one  by  one,  and  stamping  theni  as  false  in 
every  particular,  when  the  man  grew  furious,  and  asked 
me  if  I  knew  Dickens  personally.  I  replied,  '  Perfectly 
well ;  no  man  knows  him  better  than  I  do  ;  and  all  your 
stories  about  him  from  beginning  to  end,  to  these  ladies, 
are  unmitigated  lies.'  The  man  became  livid  with  rage, 
and  asked  for  my  card.  '  You  shall  have  it,'  I  said, 
and,  coolly  taking  out  one,  I  presented  it  to  him  without 
bowing.  We  were  just  then  n earing  the  station  in  Lon- 
don, so  that  I  was  spared  a  longer  interview  with  my 
truthful  companion;  but,  if  I  were  to  live  a  hundred 
years,  I  should  not  forget  the  abject  condition  into  which 
the  narrator  of  my  crimes  was  instantly  plunged.  His 
face  turned  white  as  his  cravat,  and  his  lips  refused  to 
utter  words.  He  seemed  Like  a  wilted  vegetable,  and  as 
if  his  legs  belonged  to  somebody  else.  The  ladies  became 
aware  of  the  situation  at  once,  and,  bidding  them  '  good 
day,'  I  stepped  smilingly  out  of  the  carriage.  Before  I 
could  get  away  from  the  station  the  man  had  mustered 
up  strength  sufficient  to  follow  me,  and  his  apologies  were 
so  nauseous  and  craven,  that  I  pitied  him  from  my  soul. 
I  left  him  with  this  caution,  '  Before  you  make  charges 
against  the  character  of  any  man  again,  about  whom 
you  know  nothing,  and  of  whose  works  you  are  utterly 
ignorant,  study  to  be  a  seeker  after  Truth,  and  avoid 
Lying  as  you  would  eternal  perdition.' " 

I  never  ceased  to  wonder  at  Dickens's  indomitable 
cheerfulness,  even  when  he  was  suffering  from  ill  health, 
and  could  not  sleep  more  than  two  or  three  hours  out  of 
the  twenty-four.  He  made  it  a  point  never  to  inflict  on 
another  what  he  might  be  painfully  enduring  himself, 
and  I  have  seen  him,  with  what  must  have  been  a  great 
effort,  arrange  a  merry  meeting  for  some  friends,  when  I 


DICKENS.  175 


knew  that  almost  any  one  else  under  similar  circum- 
stances would  have  sought  relief  in  bed. 

One  evening  at  a  little  dinner  given  by  himself  to  half 
a  dozen  friends  in  Boston,  he  came  out  very  strong.  His 
influenza  lifted  a  little,  as  lie  said  afterwards,  and  he  took 
advantage  of  the  lull.  Only  his  own  pen  could  possibly 
give  an  idea  of  that  hilarious  night,  and  I  will  merely 
attempt  a  brief  reference  to  it.  As  soon  as  we  were 
seated  at  the  table,  I  read  in  his  lustrous  eye,  and  heard 
in  his  jovial  voice,  that  all  solemn  forms  were  to  be  dis- 
pensed with  on  that  occasion,  and  that  merriment  might 
be  confidently  expected.  To  the  end  of  the  feast  there 
was  no  let  up  to  his  magnificent,  cheerfulness  and  humor. 

J B ,  ex-minister  plenipotentiary  as  he  was,  went 

in  for  nonsense,  and  he,  I  am  sure,  will  not  soon  forget 
how  undignified  we  all  were,  and  what  screams  of  laugh- 
ter went  up  from  his  own  uncontrollable  throat.  Among 
other  tomfooleries,  we  had  an  imitation  of  scenes  at  an 
English  hustings,  Dickens  bringing  on  his  candidate  (his 
friend  D ),  and  I  opposing  him  with  mine  (the  ex- 
minister).  Of  course  there  was  nothing  spoken  in  the 
speeches  worth  remembering,  but  it  was  Dickens's  man- 
ner that  carried  off  the  whole  thing.     D necessarily 

now  wears  his  hair  so  widely  parted  in  the  middle  that 
only  two  little  capillary  scraps  are  left,  just  over  his  ears,  to 
show  what  kind  of  thatch  once  covered  his  jolly  cranium. 
Dickens  pretended  that  his  candidate  was  superior  to  the 
other,  because  he  had  no  hair ;  and  that  mine,  being  pro- 
fusely supplied  with  that  commodity  was  in  consequence 
disqualified  in  a  marked  degree  for  an  election.  His  speech, 
for  volubility  and  nonsense,  was  nearly  fatal  to  us  all. 
We  roared  and  writhed  in  agonies  of  laughter,  and  the 
candidates  themselves  were  literally  choking  and  crying 
with  the  humor  of  the  thing.  But  the  fun  culminated 
when  I  tried  to  get  a  hearing  in  behalf  of  my  man,  and 


176  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Dickens  drowned  all  my  attempts  to  be  heard  with  imita- 
tive jeers  of  a  boisterous  election  mob.  He  seemed  to 
have  as  many  voices  that  night  as  the  human  throat  is 
capable  of,  and  the  repeated  interrupting  shouts,  among 
others,  of  a  pretended  husky  old  man  bawling  out  at 
intervals,  "  Three  cheers  for  the  bald  'un  ! "  "  Down  vith 
the  hairy  aristocracy ! "  "  Up  vith  the  little  shiny  chap 
on  top  ! "  and  other  similar  outbursts,  I  can  never  forget. 
At  last,  in  sheer  exhaustion,  we  all  gave  in,  and  agreed  to 
break  up  and  thus  save  our  lives,  if  it  were  not  already 
too  late  to  make  the  attempt. 

The  extent  and  variety  of  Dickens's  tones  were  won- 
derful. Once  he  described  to  me  in  an  inimitable  way  a 
scene  he  witnessed  many  years  ago  at  a  London  theatre, 
and  I  am  certain  no  professional  ventriloquist  could  have 
reproduced  it  better.  I  could  never  persuade  him  to 
repeat  the  description  in  presence  of  others  ;  but  he  did  it 
for  me  several  times  during  our  walks  into  the  country, 
where  he  was,  of  course,  unobserved.  His  recital  of  the 
incident  was  irresistibly  droll,  and  no  words  of  mine  can 
give  the  situation  even,  as  he  gave  it.  He  said  he  was 
once  sitting  in  the  pit  of  a  London  theatre,  when  two 
men  came  in  and  took  places  directly  in  front  of  him. 
Both  were  evidently  strangers  from  the  country,  and  not 
very  familiar  with  the  stage.  One  of  them  was  stone 
deaf,  and  relied  entirely  upon  his  friend  to  keep  him 
informed  of  the  dialogue  and  story  of  the  play  as  it  went 
on,  by  having  bawled  into  his  ear,  word  for  word,  as  near 
as  possible  what  the  actors  and  actresses  were  saying. 
The  man  who  could  hear  became  intensely  interested  in 
the  play,  and  kept  close  watch  of  the  stage.  The  deaf 
man  also  shared  in  the  progressive  action  of  the  drama, 
and  rated  his  friend  soundly,  in  a  loud  voice,  if  a  stitch 
in  the  story  of  the  play  were  inadvertently  dropped. 
Dickens  gave  the  two  voices  of  these  two  spectators  with 


DICKENS.  177 


his  best  comic  and  dramatic  power.  Notwithstanding 
the  roars  of  the  audience,  for  the  scene  in  the  pit  grew 
immensely  funny  to  them  as  it  went  on,  the  deaf  man 
and  his  friend  were  too  much  interested  in  the  main  busi- 
ness of  the  evening  to  observe  that  they  were  noticed. 
One  bawled  louder,  and  the  other,  with  his  elevated  ear- 
trumpet,  listened  more  intently  than  ever.  At  length  the 
scene  culminated  in  a  most  unexpected  manner.  "  Now," 
screamed  the  hearing  man  to  the  deaf  one,  "  they  are  going 
to  elope  ! "  "  Who  is  going  to  elope  ?  "  asked  the  deaf 
man,  in  a  loud,  vehement  tone.  "  Why,  them  two,  the 
young  man  in  the  red  coat  and  the  girl  in  a  white  gown, 
that  's  a  talking  together  now,  and  just  going  off  the 
stage  ! "  "  Well,  then,  you  must  have  missed  telling  me 
something  they  've  said  before,"  roared  the  other  in  an 
enraged  and  stentorian  voice ;  "  for  there  was  nothing  in 
their  conduct  all  the  evening,  as  you  have  been  represent- 
ing it  to  me,  that  would  warrant  them  in  such  a  proceed- 
ing ! "  At  which  the  audience  could  not  bear  it  any 
longer,  and  screamed  their  delight  till  the  curtain  fell. 

Dickens  was  always  planning  something  to  interest  and 
amuse  his  friends,  and  when  in  America  he  taught  us 
several  games  arranged  by  himself,  which  we  played  again 
and  again,  he  taking  part  as  our  instructor.  While  he 
was  travelling  from  point  to  point,  he  was  cogitating  fresh 
charades  to  be  acted  when  we  should  again  meet.  It  was 
at  Baltimore  that  he  first  conceived  the  idea  of  a  walking- 
match,  which  should  take  place  on  his  return  to  Boston, 
and  he  drew  up  a  set  of  humorous  "  articles,"  which  he 
sent  to  me  with  this  injunction,  "  Keep  them  in  a  place 
of  profound  safety,  for  attested  execution,  until  my  arrival 
in  Boston."  He  went  into  this  matter  of  the  walking- 
match  with  as  much  earnest  directness  as  if  he  were 
planning  a  new  novel.  The  articles,  as  prepared  by  him- 
self, are  thus  drawn  up  :  — 


178  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


"  Articles  of  agreement  entered  into  at  Baltimore,  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  this  third  day  of  February  in   the  year   of  our 

Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-eight,  between 

,  British  subject,   alias  the  Man  of  Ross,  and , 

American  citizen,  alias  the  Boston  Bantam. 

"  Whereas,  some  Bounce  having  arisen  between  the  above  men 
in  reference  to  feats  of  pedestrianism  and  agility,  they  have  agreed 
to  settle  their  differences  and  prove  who  is  the  better  man,  by 
means  of  a  walking-match  for  two  hats  a  side  and  the  glory  of  their 
respective  countries ;  and  whereas  they  agree  that  the  said  match 
shall  come  off,  whatsoever  the  weather,  on  the  Mill  Dam  Road  out- 
side Boston,  on  Saturday,  the  29th  day  of  this  present  month;  and 
whereas  they  agree  that  the  personal  attendants  on  themselves 
during  the  whole  walk,  and  also  the  umpires  and  starters  and  de- 
clarers of  victory  in  the  match  shall  be of  Boston,  known 

in  sporting  circles  as  Massachusetts  Jemmy,  and  Charles  Dickens  of  < 
Falstaff 's  Gad's  Hill,  whose  surprising  performances  (without  the 
least  variation)  on  that  truly  national  instrument,  the  American 
catarrh,  have  won  for  him  the  well-merited  title  of  the  Gad's  Hill 
Gasper :  — 

"  1.  The  men  are  to  be  started,  on  the  day  appointed,  by  Massa- 
chusetts Jemmy  and  The  Gasper. 

"  2.  Jemmy  and  The  Gasper  are,  on  some  previous  day,  to  walk 
out  at  the  rate  of  not  less  than  four  miles  an  hour  by  the  Gasper's 
watch,  for  one  hour  and  a  half.  At  the  expiration  of  that  one  hour 
and  a  half  they  are  to  carefully  note  the  place  at  which  they  halt. 
On  the  match's  coming  off  they  are  to  station  themselves  in  the 
middle  of  the  road,  at  that  precise  point,  and  the  men  (keeping 
clear  of  them  and  of  each  other)  are  to  turn  round  them,  right 
shoulder  inward,  and  walk  back  to  the  starting-pomt.  The  man 
declared  by  them  to  pass  the  starting-point  first  is  to  be  the  victor 
and  the  winner  of  the  match. 

"  3.  No  jostling  or  fouling  allowed. 

"  4.  All  cautions  or  orders  issued  to  the  men  by  the  umpires, 
starters,  and  declarers  of  victory  to  be  considered  final  and  admitting 
of  no  appeal. 

"  5.  A  sporting  narrative  of  the  match  to  be  written  by  The  Gas- 
per within  one  week  after  its  coming  off,  and  the  same  to  be  duly 
printed  (at  the  expense  of  the  subscribers  to  these  articles)  on  a 
broadside.  The  said  broadside  to  be  framed  and  glazed,  and  one 
copy  of  the  same  to  be  carefully  preserved  by  each  of  the  sub- 
scribers to  these  articles. 


DICKENS.  179 


"  6.  The  men  to  show  on  the  evening  of  the  day  of  walking,  at 
six  o'clock  precisely,  at  the  Parker  House,  Boston,  when  and  where 
a  dinner  will  be  given  them  by  The  Gasper.  The  Gasper  to  occupy 
the  chair,  faced  by  Massachusetts  Jemmy.  The  latter  promptly 
and  formally  to  invite,  as  soon  as  may  be  after  the  date  of  these 
presents,  the  following  guests  to  honor  the  said  dinner  with  their 
presence  ;  that  is  to  say  [here  follow  the  names  of  a  few  of  his 
friends,  whom  he  wished  to  be  invited]. 

"  Now,  lastly.  In  token  of  their  accepting  the  trusts  and  offices 
by  these  articles  conferred  upon  them,  these  articles  are  solemnly 
and  formally  signed  by  Massachusetts  Jemmy  and  by  the  Gad's  Hill 
Gasper,  as  well  as  by  the  men  themselves. 

"  Signed  by  the  Man  of  Ross,  otherwise . 


"  Signed  by  the  Boston  Bantam,  otherwise . 

"  Signed  by  Massachusetts  Jemmy,  otherwise . 

"  Signed  by  the  Gad's  Hill  Gasper,  otherwise  Charles  Dickens. 
"  Witness  to  the  signatures, ." 

When  he  returned  to  Boston  from  Baltimore,  he  pro- 
posed that  I  should  accompany  him  over  the  walking- 
ground  "  at  the  rate  of  not  less  than  four  miles  an  hour, 
for  one  hour  and  a  half."  I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  tre- 
mendous pace  at  which  he  travelled  that  day.  I  have 
seen  a  great  many  walkers,  but  never  one  with  whom  I 
found  it  such  hard  work  to  keep  up.  Of  course  his  object 
was  to  stretch  out  the  space  as  far  as  possible  for  our 
friends  to  travel  on  the  appointed  day.  With  watch  in 
hand,  Dickens  strode  on  over  the  Mill  Dam  toward  New- 
ton Centre.  When  we  reached  the  turning-point,  and 
had  established  the  extreme  limit,  we  both  felt  that  we 
had  given  the  men  who  were  to  walk  in  the  match  excel- 
lent good  measure.  All  along  the  road  people  had  stared 
at  us,  wondering,  I  suppose,  why  two  men  on  such  a 
blustering  day  should  be  pegging  away  in  the  middle  of 
the  road  as  if  life  depended  on  the  speed  they  were  get- 
ting over  the  ground.  We  had  walked  together  many  a 
mile  before  this,  but  never  at  such  a  rate  as  on  this  day. 
I  had  never  seen  his  full  power  tested  before,  and  I  could 


180  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

not  but  feel  great  admiration  for  his  walking  pluck.  We 
were  both  greatly  heated,  and,  seeing  a  little  shop  by  the 
roadside,  we  went  in  for  refreshments.  A  few  sickly- 
looking  oranges  were  all  we  could  obtain  to  quench  our 
thirst,  and  we  seized  those  and  sat  down  on  the  shop 
door-steps,  tired  and  panting.  After  a  few  minutes'  rest 
we  started  again  and  walked  back  to  town.  Thirteen 
miles'  stretch  on  a  brisk  winter  day  did  neither  of  us  any 
harm,  and  Dickens  was  in  great  spirits  over  the  match 
that  was  so  soon  to  come  off.  We  agreed  to  walk  over 
the  ground  again  on  the  appointed  day,  keeping  company 
with  our  respective  men.  Here  is  the  account  that  Dick- 
ens himself  drew  up,  of  that  day's  achievement,  for  the 
broadside. 

"  THE  SPORTING-  NARRATIVE. 

"  The  Men. 

"  The  Boston  Bantam  (alias  Bright  Chanticleer)  is  a  young  bird, 
though  too  old  to  be  caught  with  chaff.  He  comes  of  a  thorough 
game  breed,  and  has  a  clear  though  modest  crow.  He  pulls  down 
the  scale  at  ten  stone  and  a  half  and  add  a  pound  or  two.  His  pre- 
vious performances  in  the  pedestrian  line  have  not  been  numerous. 
He  once  achieved  a  neat  little  match  against  time  in  two  left  boots 
at  Philadelphia ;  but  this  must  be  considered  as  a  pedestrian  eccen- 
tricity, and  cannot  be  accepted  by  the  rigid  chronicler  as  high  art. 
The  old  mower  with  the  scythe  and  hour-glass  has  not  yet  laid  his 
mauley  heavily  on  the  Bantam's  frontispiece,  but  he  has  had  a  grip 
at  the  Bantam's  top  feathers,  and  in  plucking  out  a  handful  was 
very  near  making  him  like  the  great  Napoleon  Bonaparte  (with  the 
exception  of  the  victualling  department),  when  the  ancient  one 
found  himself  too  much  occupied  to  carry  out  the  idea,  and  gave  it 
up.  The  Man  of  Ross  (alias  old  Alick  Pope,  alias  Allourpraises- 
whyshouldlords,  etc.)  is  a  thought  and  a  half  too  fleshy,  and,  if  he 
accidentally  sat  down  upon  his  baby,  would  do  it  to  the  tune  of 
fourteen  stone.  This  popular  codger  is  of  the  rubicund  and  jovial 
sort,  and  has  long  been  known  as  a  piscatorial  pedestrian  on  the 
banks  of  the  Wye.  But  Izaak  Walton  had  n't  pace,  —  look  at  his 
book  and  you  '11  find  it  slow,  —  and  when  that  article  comes  in 


DICKENS.  181 


question,  the  fishing-rod  may  prove  to  some  of  his  disciples  a  rod  in 
pickle.  Howbeit,  the  Man  of  Koss  is  a  lively  ambler,  and  has  a 
smart  stride  of  his  own. 

"  The  Training. 

"  If  vigorous  attention  to  diet  could  have  brought  both  men  up 
to  the  post  in  tip-top  feather,  their  condition  would  have  left  noth- 
ing to  be  desired.  But  both  might  have  had  more  daily  practice  in 
the  poetry  of  motion.  Their  breathings  were  confined  to  an  occa- 
sional Baltimore  burst  under  the  guidance  of  The  Gasper,  and  to 
an  amicable  toddle  between  themselves  at  Washington. 

"  The  Course. 

"  Six  miles  and  a  half,  good  measure,  from  the  first  tree  on  the 
Mill  Dam  Road,  lies  the  little  village  (with  no  refreshments  in  it 
but  five  oranges  and  a  bottle  of  blacking)  of  Newton  Centre.  Here 
Massachusetts  Jemmy  and  The  Gasper  had  established  the  turning- 
point.  The  road  comprehended  every  variety  of  inconvenience  to 
test  the  mettle  of  the  men,  and  nearly  the  whole  of  it  was  covered 
with  snow. 

"  The  Start 

was  effected  beautifully.  The  men  taking  their  stand  in  exact  line 
at  the  starting-post,  the  first  tree  aforesaid,  received  from  The 
Gasper  the  warning,  "  Are  you  ready  ?  "  and  then  the  signal,  "  One, 
two,  three.  Go !  "  They  got  away  exactly  together,  and  at  a 
spinning  speed,  waited  on  by  Massachusetts  Jemmy  and  the  Gasper. 

"  The  Race. 

"  In  the  teeth  of  an  intensely  cold  and  bitter  wind,  before  which 
the  snow  flew  fast  and  furious  across  the  road  from  right  to  left,  the 
Bantam  slightly  led.  But  the  Man  responded  to  the  challenge,  and 
soon  breasted  him.  For  the  first  three  miles  each  led  by  a  yard  or 
so  alternately ;  but  the  walking  was  very  even.  On  four  miles 
being  called  by  The  Gasper  the  men  were  side  by  side  ;  and  then 
ensued  one  of  the  best  periods  of  the  race,  the  same  splitting  pace 
being  held  by  both  through  a  heavy  snow-wreath  and  up  a  dragging 
hill.  At  this  point  it  was  anybody's  game,  a  dollar  on  Rossius  and 
two  half-dollars  on  the  member  of  the  feathery  tribe.  When  five 
miles  were  called,  the  men  were  still  shoulder  to  shoulder.  At 
about  six  miles  The  Gasper  put  on  a  tremendous  spirt  to  leave  the 
men  behind  and  establish  himself  at  the  turning-point  at  the  en' 


1 82  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

trance  of  the  village.  He  afterwards  declared  that  he  received  a 
mental  knock-downer  on  taking  his  station  and  facing  about,  to 
find  Bright  Chanticleer  close  in  upon  him,  and  Rossius  steaming  up 
like  a  locomotive.  The  Bantam  rounded  first;  Rossius  rounded 
wide ;  and  from  that  moment  the  Bantam  steadily  shot  ahead. 
Though  both  were  breathed  at  the  town,  the  Bantam  quickly  got 
his  bellows  into  obedient  condition,  and  blew  away  like  an  orderly 
blacksmith  in  full  work  The  forcing-pumps  of  Rossius  likewise 
proved  themselves  tough  and  true,  and  warranted  first-rate,  but  he 
fell  off  in  pace ;  whereas  the  Bantam  pegged  away  with  his  little 
drumsticks,  as  if  he  saw  his  wives  and  a  peck  of  barley  waiting  for 
him  at  the  family  perch.  Continually  gaining  upon  him  of  Ross, 
Chanticleer  gradually  drew  ahead  within  a  very  few  yards  of  half  a 
mile,  finally  doing  the  whole  distance  in  two  hours  and  forty-eight 
minutes.  Ross  had  ceased  to  compete  three  miles  short  of  the  win- 
ning-post, but  bravely  walked  it  out  and  came  in  seven  minutes 

later. 

"  Remarks. 

"  The  difficulties  under  which  this  plucky  match  was  walked  can 
only  be  appreciated  by  those  who  were  on  the  ground.  To  the  ex- 
cessive rigor  of  the  icy  blast  and  the  depth  and  state  of  the  snow 
must  be  added  the  constant  scattering  of  the  latter  into  the  air  and 
into  the  eyes  of  the  men,  while  heads  of  hair,  beards,  eyelashes,  and 
eyebrows  were  frozen  into  icicles.  To  breathe  at  all,  in  such  a 
rarefied  and  disturbed  atmosphere,  was  not  easy ;  but  to  breathe  up 
to  the  required  mark  was  genuine,  slogging,  ding-dong,  hard  labor. 
That  both  competitors  were  game  to  the  backbone,  doing  what 
they  did  under  such  conditions,  was  evident  to  all ;  but  to  his  game- 
ness  the  courageous  Bantam  added  unexpected  endurance  and  (like 
the  sailor's  watch  that  did  three  hours  to  the  cathedral  clock's  one) 
unexpected  powers  of  going  when  wound  up.  The  knowing  eye 
oould  not  fail  to  detect  considerable  disparity  between  the  lads; 
Chanticleer  being,  as  Mrs.  Cratchit  said  of  Tiny  Tim,  ;i  very  light 
to  carry,"  and  Rossius  promising  fair  to  attain  the  rotundity  of  the 
Anonymous  Cove  in  the  Epigram :  — 

'  And  when  he  walks  the  streets  the  paviors  cry, 
"  God  bless  you,  sir  ! "  —  and  lay  their  rammers  by.'  " 

The  dinner  at  the  Parker  House,  after  the  fatigues  of 
the  day,  was  a  brilliant  success.  The  Great  International 
Walking-Match  was  over ;  America  had  won,  and  England 


DICKENS.  183 


was  nowhere.  The  victor  and  the  vanquished  were  the 
heroes  of  the  occasion,  for  both  had  shown  great  powers 
of  endurance  and  done  their  work  in  capital  time.  We 
had  no  set  speeches  at  the  table,  for  we  had  voted  elo- 
quence a  bore  before  we  sat  down.  David  Copperfield, 
Hyperion,  Hosea  Biglow,  the  Autocrat,  and  the  Bad  Boy- 
were  present,  and  there  was  no  need  of  set  speeches.  The 
ladies  present,  being  all  daughters  of  America,  smiled 
upon  the  champion,  and  we  had  a  great,  good  time.  The 
banquet  provided  by  Dickens  was  profusely  decorated 
with  flowers,  arranged  by  himself.  The  master  of  the 
feast  was  in  his  best  mood,  albeit  his  country  had  lost ; 
and  we  all  declared,  when  we  bade  him  good  night,  that 
none  of  us  had  ever  enjoyed  a  festival  more. 

Soon  after  this  Dickens  started  on  his  reading  travels 
again,  and  I  received  from  him  frequent  letters  from 
various  parts  of  the  country.  On  the  8th  of  March, 
1868,  he  writes  from  a  Western  city :  — 

Sunday,  8th  March,  1868. 

Mv  dear  Fields  :  We  came  here  yesterday  most  comfortably  in 
a  "  drawing-room  car,"  of  which  (Rule  Britannia!)  we  bought  ex- 
clusive possession.    is  rather  a  depressing  feather  in  the  eagle's 

wing,  when  considered  on  a  Sunday  and  in  a  thaw.  Its  hotel  is 
likewise  a  dreary  institution.  But  I  have  an  impression  that  we 
must  be  in  the  wrong  one,  and  buoy  myself  up  with  a  devout  belief 
in  the  other,  over  the  way.  The  awakening  to  consciousness  this 
morning  on  a  lop-sided  bedstead  facing  nowhere,  in  a  room  holding 
nothing  but  sour  dust,  was  more  terrible  than  the  being  afraid  to 
go  to  bed  last  night.  To  keep  ourselves  up  we  played  whist 
(double  dummy)  until  neither  of  us  could  bear  to  speak  to  the  other 
any  more.  We  had  previously  supped  on  a  tough  old  nightmare 
named  buffalo. 

What  do  you  think  of  a  "  Fowl  de  poulet "  ?  or  a  "Paettie  de 
Shay  "  ?  or  "  Celary  "  ?  or  "  Murange  with  cream  "  ?  Because  all 
these  delicacies  are  in  the  printed  bill  of  fare !  If  Mrs.  Fields 
would  like  the  recipe,  how  to  make  a  "  Paettie  de  Shay,"  telegraph 
instantly,  and  the  recipe  shall  be  purchased.      We  asked  ihe  Irish 


184  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

waiter  what  this  dish  was,  and  he  said  it  was  "  the  Frinch  name  the 
steward  giv'  to  oyster  pattie."  It  is  usually  washed  down,  I  believe, 
with  "  Movseaux,"  or  "  Table  Madeira,"  or  "  Abasinthe,"  or  "  Cur- 
?aco,"  all  of  which  drinks  are  on  the  wine  list.     I  mean  to  drink 

my  love  to after  dinner  in  Movseaux.     Your  ruggeder  nature 

shall  be  pledged  in  Abasinthe. 

Ever  affectionately, 

Charles  Dickens. 

On  the  19th  of  March  he  writes  from  Albany :  — 

Albany,  19th  March,  1868. 

My  dear :  I  should  have  answered  your  kind  and  welcome 

note  before  now,  but  that  we  have  been  in  difficulties.  After  creep- 
ing through  water  for  miles  upon  miles,  our  train  gave  it  up  as  a 
bad  job  between  Rochester  and  this  place,  and  stranded  us,  early 
on  Tuesday  afternoon,  at  Utica.  There  we  remained  all  night,  and 
at  six  o'clock  yesterday  morning  were  ordered  up  to  get  ready  for 
starting  again.  Then  we  were  countermanded.  Then  we  were 
once  more  told  to  get  ready.  Then  we  were  told  to  stay  where  we 
were.  At  last  we  got  off  at  eight  o'clock,  and  after  paddling 
through  the  flood  until  half  past  three,  got  landed  here,  —  to  the 
great  relief  of  our  minds  as  well  as  bodies,  for  the  tickets  were  all 
sold  out  for  last  night.  We  had  all  sorts  of  adventures  by  the  way, 
among  which  two  of  the  most  notable  were  :  — 

1.  Picking  up  two  trains  out  of  the  water,  in  which  the  pas- 
sengers had  been  composedly  sitting  all  night,  until  relief  should 
arrive. 

2.  Unpacking  and  releasing  into  the  open  country  a  great  train 
of  cattle  and  sheep  that  had  been  in  the  water  I  don't  know  how 
long,  and  that  had  begun  in  their  imprisonment  to  eat  each  other. 
I  never  could  have  realized  the  strong  and  dismal  expressions  of 
which  the  faces  of  sheep  are  capable,  had  I  not  seen  the  haggard 
countenances  of  this  unfortunate  flock  as  they  were  tumbled  out  of 
their  dens  and  picked  themselves  up  and  made  off,  leaping  wildly 
(many  with  broken  legs)  over  a  great  mound  of  thawing  snow, 
and  over  the  worried  body  of  a  deceased  companion.  Their  misery 
was  so  very  human  that  I  was  sorry  to  recognize  several  intimate 
acquaintances  conducting  themselves  m  this  forlornly  gymnastic 
manner. 

As  there  is  no  question  that  our  friendship  began  in  some  pre- 
vious state  of  existence  many  years  ago,  I  am  now  going  to  make 
bold  to  mention  a  discovery  we  have  made  concerning  Springfield 


DICKENS.  185 


We  find  that  by  remaining  there  next  Saturday  and  Sunday,  instead 
of  coming  on  to  Boston,  we  shall  save  several  hours'  travel,  and 
much  wear  and  tear  of  our  baggage  and  camp-followers.  Ticknor 
reports  the  Springfield  hotel  excellent.  Now  will  you  and  Fields 
come  and  pass  Sunday  with  us  there  ?  It  will  be  delightful,  if  you 
can.  If  you  cannot,  will  you  defer  our  Boston  dinner  until  the  fol- 
lowing Sunday  ?  Send  me  a  hopeful  word  to  Springfield  (Massa- 
soit  House)  in  reply,  please. 

Lowell's  delightful  note  enclosed  with  thanks.  Do  make  a  trial 
for  Springfield.  We  saw  Professor  White  at  Syracuse,  and  went 
out  for  a  ride  with  him.  Queer  quarters  at  Utica,  and  nothing  par- 
ticular to  eat ;  but  the  people  so  very  anxious  to  please,  that  it 
was  better  than  the  best  cuisine.  I  made  a  jug  of  punch  (in  the 
bedroom  pitcher),  and  we  drank  our  love  to  you  and  Fields.  Dolby 
had  more  than  his  share,  under  pretence  of  devoted  enthusiasm. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

Charles  Dickens. 

His  readings  everywhere  were  crowned  with  enthusias- 
tic success,  and  if  his  strength  had  been  equal  to  his  will, 
he  could  have  stayed  in  America  another  year,  and  occu- 
pied every  night  of  it  with  his  wonderful  impersonations. 
I  regretted  extremely  that  he  felt  obliged  to  give  up  visit- 
ing the  West.  Invitations  which  greatly  pleased  him 
came  day  after  day  from  the  principal  cities  and  towns, 
but  his  friends  soon  discovered  that  his  health  would  not 
allow  him  to  extend  his  travels  beyond  Washington. 

He  sailed  for  home  on  the  19th  of  April,  1868,  and  we 
shook  hands  with  him  on  the  deck  of  the  Russia  as  the 
good  ship  turned  her  prow  toward  England.  He  was  in 
great  spirits  at  the  thought  of  so  soon  again  seeing  Gad's 
Hill,  and  the  prospect  of  a  rest  after  all  his  toilsome  days 
and  nights  in  America.  While  at  sea  he  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  me  :  — 

Aboard  the  Russia,  bound  for  Liverpool,  Sunday,  26th  April,  1868. 
My  dear  Fields  :  In  order  that  you  may  have  the  earliest  intelli- 
gence of  me,  I  begin  this  note  to-day  in  my  small  cabin,  purposing 
(if  it  should  prove  practicable)  to  oost  it  at  Queenstown  for  the  re- 
turn steamer. 


1 86  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

We  are  already  past  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland,  although  our 
course  was  seventy  miles  to  the  south,  with  the  view  of  avoiding 
ice  seen  by  Judkins  in  the  Scotia  on  his  passage  out  to  New  York. 
The  Russia  is  a  magnificent  ship,  and  has  dashed  along  bravely.  We 
had  made  more  than  thirteen  hundred  and  odd  miles  at  noon  to-day. 
The  wind,  after  being  a  little  capricious,  rather  threatens  at  the 
present  time  to  turn  against  us,  but  our  run  is  already  eighty  miles 
ahead  of  the  Russia's  last  run  in  this  direction, — a  very  fast  one. 
....  To  all  whom  it  may  concern,  report  the  Russia  in  the  highest 
terms.  She  rolls  more  easily  than  the  other  Cunard  Screws,  is  kept 
in  perfect  order,  and  is  most  carefully  looked  after  in  all  depart- 
ments. We  have  had  nothing  approaching  to  heavy  weather;  still, 
one  can  speak  to  the  trim  of  the  ship.  Her  captain,  a  gentleman ; 
bright,  polite,  good-natured,  and  vigilant 

As  to  me,  I  am  greatly  better,  I  hope.  I  have  got  on  my  right 
boot  to-day  for  the  first  time  ;  the  "  true  American  "  seems  to  be 
turning  faithless  at  last ;  and  I  made  a  Gad's  Hill  breakfast  this 
morning,  as  a  further  advance  on  having  otherwise  eaten  and  drunk 
all  day  ever  since  Wednesday. 

You  will  see  Anthony  Trollope,  I  dare  say.  What  was  my 
amazement  to  see  him  with  these  eyes  come  aboard  in  the  mail 
tender  just  before  we  started !  He  had  come  out  in  the  Scotia 
just  in  time  to  dash  off  again  in  said  tender  to  shake  hands  with 
me,  knowing  me  to  be  aboard  here.  It  was  most  heartily  done. 
He  is  on  a  special  mission  of  convention  with  the  United  States 
post-office. 

We  have  been  picturing  your  movements,  and  have  duly  checked 
■off  your  journey  home,  and  have  talked  about  you  continually. 
But  I  have  thought  about  you  both,  even  much,  much  more.  You 
will  never  know  how  I  love  you  both ;  or  what  you  have  been  to 
me  in  America,  and  will  always  be  to  me  everywhere ;  or  how 
fervently  I  thank  you. 

All  the  working  of  the  ship  seems  to  be  done  on  my  forehead. 
It  is  scrubbed  and  holystoned  (my  head  —  not  the  deck)  at  three 
every  morning.  It  is  scraped  and  swabbed  all  day.  Eight  pairs 
of  heavy  boots  are  now  clattering  on  it,  getting  the  ship  under  sail 
again.  Legions  of  ropes'-ends  are  flopped  upon  it  as  I  write,  and 
I  must  leave  off  with  Dolby's  love. 

Thursday,  30th. 

Soon  after  I  left  off  as  above  we  had  a  gale  of  wind,  which  blew 
all  night.  For  a  few  hours  on  the  evening  side  of  midnight  there 
was  no  getting  from  this  cabin  of  mine  to  the  saloon,  or  vice  versa. 


DICKENS.  187 


so  heavily  did  the  sea  break  over  the  decks.  The  ship,  however, 
made  nothing  of  it,  and  we  were  all  right  again  by  Monday  after- 
noon. Except  for  a  few  hours  yesterday  (when  we  had  a  very 
light  head  wind),  the  weather  has  been  constantly  favorable,  and 
we  are  now  bowling  away  at  a  great  rate,  with  a  fresh  breeze  fill- 
ing all  our  sails.  We  expect  to  be  at  Queenstown  between  mid- 
night and  three  in  the  morning. 

I  hope,  my  dear  Fields,  you  may  find  this  legible,  but  I  rather 
doubt  it ;  for  there  is  motion  enough  on  the  ship  to  render  writing 
to  a  landsman,  however  accustomed  to  pen  and  ink,  rather  a  diffi- 
cult achievement.  Besides  which,  I  slide  away  gracefully  from  the 
paper,  whenever  I  want  to  be  particularly  expressive 

,  sitting  opposite  to  me  at  breakfast,  always  has  the  following 

items :  A  large  dish  of  porridge,  into  which  he  casts  slices  of  butter 
and  a  quantity  of  sugar.  Two  cups  of  tea.  A  steak.  Irish  stew. 
Chutnee,  and  marmalade.  Another  deputation  of  two  has  solicited 
a  reading  to-night.  Illustrious  novelist  has  unconditionally  and  ab- 
solutely declined. 

More  love,  and  more  to  that,  from  your  ever  affectionate  friend, 

C.  D. 

His  first  letter  from  home  gave  us  all  great  pleasure, 
for  it  announced  his  complete  recovery  from  the  severe 
influenza  that  had  fastened  itself  upon  him  so  many- 
months  before.  Among  his  earliest  notes  I  find  these 
paragraphs  :  — 

"  I  have  found  it  so  extremely  difficult  to  write  about  America 
(though  never  so  briefly)  without  appearing  to  blow  trumpets  on 
the  one  hand,  or  to  be  inconsistent  with  my  avowed  determination 
not  to  write  about  it  on  the  other,  that  I  have  taken  the  simple 
course  enclosed.  The  number  will  be  published  on  the  6th  of  June. 
It  appears  to  me  to  be  the  most  modest  and  manly  course,  and  to 
derive  some  graceful  significance  from  its  title 

"  Thank  my  dear for  me  for  her  delightful  letter  received  on 

the  16th.  I  will  write  to  her  very  soon,  and  tell  her  about  the 
dogs.  I  would  write  by  this  post,  but  that  Wills's  absence  (in  Sus- 
sex, and  getting  no  better  there  as  yet)  so  overwhelms  me  with 
business  that  I  can  scarcely  get  through  it. 

"  Miss  me  ?  Ah,  my  dear  fellow,  but  how  do  I  miss  you  f  We 
talk  about  you  both  at  G-ad's  Hhl  every  day  of  our  lives.  And  I 
never  see  the  place  looking  very  pretty  indeed,  or  hear  the  birds 


i88  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

sing  all  day  long  and  the  nightingales  all  night,  without  restlessly 
wishing  that  you  were  both  there. 

"  With  best  love,  and  truest  and  most  enduring  regard,  ever,  my 
dear  Fields, 

"  Your  most  affectionate, 

"  C.  D." 

"  ....  I  hope  you  will  receive  by  Saturday's  Cunard  a  case  con- 
taining : 

"  1.  A  trifling  supply  of  the  pen-knibs  that  suited  your  hand. 

"  2.  A  do.  of  unfailing  medicine  for  cockroaches. 

"3.  Mrs.  Gamp,  for . 

"  The  case  is  addressed  to  you  at  Bleecker  Street,  New  York. 
If  it  should  be  delayed  for  the  knibs  (or  nibs)  promised  to-morrow, 
and  should  be  too  late  for  the  Cunard  packet,  it  will  in  that  case 
come  by  the  next  following  Inman  steamer. 

"  Everything  here  looks  lovely,  and  I  find  it  (you  will  be  sur- 
prised to  hear)  really  a  pretty  place !  I  have  seen  No  Thorough- 
fare twice.  Excellent  things  in  it ;  but  it  drags,  to  my  thinking. 
It  is,  however,  a  great  success  in  the  country,  and  is  now  getting  up 
with  great  force  in  Paris.  Fechter  is  ill,  and  was  ordereo1  off  to 
Brighton  yesterday.  Wills  is  ill  too,  and  banished  into  Sussex  for 
perfect  rest.     Otherwise,   thank  God,  I  find  everything  well  and 

thriving.     You  and  my  dear  Mrs.  F are  constantly  in  my  mind. 

Procter  greatly  better " 


On  the  25th  of  May  he  sent  off  the  following  from 
Gad's  Hill :  — 

My  dear :  As  you  ask  me  about  the  dogs,  I  begin  with 

them.  When  I  came  down  first,  I  came  to  Gravesend,  five  miles 
off.  The  two  Newfoundland  dogs  coming  to  meet  me,  with  the 
usual  carriage  and  the  usual  driver,  and  beholding  me  coming  in  my 
usual  dress  out  at  the  usual  door,  it  struck  me  that  their  recollec- 
tion of  my  having  been  absent  for  any  unusual  time  was  at  once 
cancelled.  They  behaved  (they  are  both  young  dogs)  exactly  in 
their  usual  manner ;  coming  behind  the  basket  phaeton  as  we 
trotted  along,  and  lifting  their  heads  to  have  their  ears  pulled,  —  a 
special  attention  which  they  receive  from  no  one  else.  But  when  I 
drove  into  the  stable-yard,  Linda  (the  St.  Bernard)  was  greatly  ex- 
cited ;  weeping  profusely,  and  throwing  herself  on  her  back  that 

she  might  caress  my  foot  with  her  great  fore-paws.     M 's  little 

dog  too,  Mrs.  Bouncer,  barked  in  the  greatest  agitation  on  being 


DICKENS.  189 


called  down  and  asked  by  M ,  "  Who  is  this  ?  "  and  tore  round 

and  round  me,  like  the  dog  in  the  Faust  outlines.  You  must  know 
that  all  the  farmers  turned  out  on  the  road  in  their  market-chaises 
to  say,  "  Welcome  home,  sir !  "  that  all  the  houses  along  the  road 
were  dressed  with  flags ;  and  that  our  servants,  to  cut  out  the  rest, 
had  dressed  this  house  so,  that  every  brick  of  it  was  hidden.     They 

had  asked  M 's   permission  to    "  ring  the  alarm-bell  (!)  when 

master  drove  up  "  ;  but  M ,  having  some  slight  idea  that  that 

compliment  might  awaken  master's  sense  of  the  ludicrous,  had 
recommended  bell  abstinence.  But  on  Sunday,  the  village  choir 
(which  includes  the  bell-ringers)  made  amends.  After  some  un- 
usually brief  pious  reflection  in  the  crowns  of  their  hats  at  the 
end  of  the  sermon,  the  ringers  bolted  out  and  rang  like  mad  until  I 
got  home.  (There  had  been  a  conspiracy  among  the  villagers  to 
take  the  horse  out,  if  I  had  come  to  our  own  station,  and  draw  me 
here.     M and  (> had  got  wind  of  it  and  warned  me.) 

Divers  birds  sing  here  all  day,  and  the  nightingales  all  night. 
The  place  is  lovely,  and  in  perfect  order.  I  have  put  five  mirror* 
in  the  Swiss  Chalet  (where  I  write),  and  they  reflect  and  refract  in 
all  kinds  of  ways  the  leaves  that  are  quivering  at  the  windows,  and 
the  great  fields  of  waving  corn,  and  the  sail-dotted  river.  My  room 
is  up  among  the  branches  of  the  trees ;  and  the  birds  and  the  but- 
terflies fly  in  and  out,  and  the  green  branches  shoot  in,  at  the  open 
windows,  and  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the  clouds  come  and  go 
with  the  rest  of  the  company.  The  scent  of  the  flowers,  and  in- 
deed of  everything  that  is  growing  for  miles  and  miles,  is  most 
delicious. 

Dolby  (who  sends  a  world  of  messages)  found  his  wife  much 
better  than  he  expected,  and  the  children  (wonderful  to  relate !) 
perfect.  The  little  girl  winds  up  her  prayers  every  night  with  a 
special  commendation  to  Heaven  of  me  and  the  pony,  —  as  if  I 
must  mount  him  to  get  there !  I  dine  with  Dolby  (I  was  going  to 
write  "  him,"  but  found  it  would  look  as  if  I  were  going  to  dine 
with  the  pony)  at  Greenwich  this  very  day,  and  if  your  ears  do  not 
burn  from  six  to  nine  this  evening,  then  the  Atlantic  is  a  non-con- 
ductor. We  are  already  settling  —  think  of  this !  —  the  details  of 
my  farewell  course  of  readings.  I  am  brown  beyond  relief,  and 
cause  the  greatest  disappointment  in  all  quarters  by  looking  so  well. 
It  is  really  wonderful  what  those  fine  days  at  sea  did  for  me !  My 
doctor  was  quite  broken  down  in  spirits  when  he  saw  me,  for  the 
first  time  since  my  return,  last  Saturday.  "  Grood  Lord  !  "  he  said 
recoiling,  "  seven  years  younger !  " 


190  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

It  is  time  I  should  explain  the  otherwise  inexplicable  enclosure. 
Will  you  tell  Fields,  with  my  love,  (I  suppose  he  has  n't  used  all 
the  pens  yet  ?)  that  I  think  there  is  in  Tremont  Street  a  set  of  my 
books,  sent  out  by  Chapman,  not  arrived  when  I  departed.  Such 
set  of  the  immortal  works  of  our  illustrious,  etc.,  is  designed  for  the 
gentleman  to  whom  the  enclosure  is  addressed.    If  T.,  F.,  &  Co.  will 

kindly  forward  the  set  (carriage  paid)  with  the  enclosure  to 's 

address,  I  will  invoke  new  blessings  on  their  heads,  and  will  get 
Dolby's  little  daughter  to  mention  them  nightly. 

"  No  Thoroughfare  "  is  very  shortly  coming  out  in  Paris,  where 
it  is  now  in  active  rehearsal.  It  is  still  playing  here,  but  without 
Fechter,  who  has  been  very  ill.  The  doctor's  dismissal  of  him  to 
Paris,  however,  and  his  getting  better  there,  enables  him  to  get  up 
the  play  there.  He  and  Wilkie  missed  so  many  pieces  of  stage 
effect  here,  that,  unless  I  am  quite  satisfied  with  his  report,  I  shall 
go  over  and  try  my  stage-managerial  hand  at  the  Vaudeville  Thea- 
tre. I  particularly  want  the  drugging  and  attempted  robbing  in  the 
bedroom  scene  at  the  Swiss  inn  to  be  done  to  the  sound  of  a  water- 
fall rising  and  falling  with  the  wind.  Although  in  the  very  open- 
ing of  that  scene  they  speak  of  the  waterfall  and  listen  to  it,  nobody 
thought  of  its  mysterious  music.  I  could  make  it,  with  a  good 
stage  carpenter,  in  an  hour.  Is  it  not  a  curious  thing  that  they  want 
to  make  me  a  governor  of  the  Foundling  Hospital,  because,  since 
the  Christmas  number,  they  have  had  such  an  amazing  access  of 
visitors  and  money? 

My  dear  love  to  Fields  once  again.     Same  to  you  and  him  from 

M and  G- .     I  cannot  tell  you  both  how  I  miss  you,  or  how 

overjoyed  I  should  be  to  see  you  here. 

Ever,  my  dear ,  your  most  affectionate  friend, 

C.  D. 

Excellent  accounts  of  his  health  and  spirits  continued 
to  come  from  Gad's  Hill,  and  his  letters  were  full  of  plans 
for  the  future.  On  the  7th  of  July  he  writes  from  Gad's 
Hill  as  usual :  — 

Gad's  Hill  Place,  Tuesday,  7th  July,  1868. 

My  dear  Fields  :  I  have  delayed  writing  to  you  (and ,  to 

whom  my  love)  until  I  should  have  seen  Longfellow.  When  he 
was  in  London  the  first  time  he  came  and  went  without  reporting 
himself,  and  left  me  in  a  state  of  unspeakable  discomfiture.  Indeed, 
I  should  not  have  believed  in  his  having  been  here  at  all,  if  Mrs 
Procter  had  not  told  me  of  his  calling  to  see  Procter.     However,  oa 


DICKENS.  191 


his  return  he  wrote  to  me  from  the  Langham  Hotel,  and  I  went  up 
to  town  to  see  him,  and  to  make  an  appointment  for  his  coming 

here.     He,  the  girls,  and came  down  last  Saturday  night,  and 

stayed  until  Monday  forenoon.  I  showed  them  all  the  neighboring 
country  that  could  be  shown  in  so  short  a  time,  and  they  finished 
off  with  a  tour  of  inspection  of  the  kitchens,  pantry,  wine-cellar, 
pickles,  sauces,  servants'  sitting-room,  general  household  stores,  and 
even  the  Cellar  Book,  of  this  illustrious  establishment.  Forster  and 
Kent  (the  latter  wrote  certain  verses  to  Longfellow,  which  have 

been  published   in  the  "  Times,"  and  which  I  sent  to  D )  came 

down  for  a  day,  and  I  hope  we  all  had  a  really  "  good  time."  I 
turned  out  a  couple  of  postilions  in  the  old  red  jacket  of  the  old 
red  royal  Dover  road,  for  our  ride ;  and  it  was  like  a  holiday  ride  in 
England  fifty  years  ago.  Of  course  we  went  to  look  at  the  old 
houses  in  Rochester,  and  the  old  cathedral,  and  the  old  castle,  and 
the  house  for  the  six  poor  travellers  who,  "  not  being  rogues  or 
proctors,  shall  have  lodging,  entertainment,  and  four  pence  each." 

Nothing  can  surpass  the  respect  paid  to  Longfellow  here,  from 
the  Queen  downward.  He  is  everywhere  received  and  courted, 
and  finds  (as  I  told  him  he  would,  when  we  talked  of  it  in  Boston) 
the  workingmen  at  least  as  well  acquainted  with  his  books  as  the 
classes  socially  above  them 

Last  Thursday  I  attended,  as  sponsor,  the  christening  of  Dolby's 
son  and  heir,  —  a  most  jolly  baby,  who  held  on  tight  by  the  rector's 
left  whisker  while  the  service  was  performed.  What  time,  too,  his 
little  sister,  connecting  me  with  the  pony,  trotted  up  and  down  the 
centre  isle,  noisily  driving  herself  as  that  celebrated  animal,  so  that 
it  went  very  hard  with  the  sponsorial  dignity. 

is  not  yet  recovered  from  that  concussion  of  the  brain,  and  I 

have  all  his  work  to  do.  This  may  account  for  my  not  being  able 
to  devise  a  Christmas  number,  but  I  seem  to  have  left  my  invention 
in  America.  In  case  you  should  find  it,  please  send  it  over.  I  am 
going  up  to  town  to-day  to  dine  with  Longfellow.  And  now,  my 
dear  Fields,  you  know  all  about  me  and  mine. 

You  are  enjoying  your  holiday  ?  and  are  still  thinking  sometimes 
of  our  Boston  days,  as  I  do  ?  and  are  maturing  schemes  for  coming 
here  next  summer  ?  A  satisfactory  reply  to  the  last  question  is  par- 
ticularly entreated. 

I  am  delighted  to  find  you  both  so  well  pleased  with  the  Blind 
Book  scheme.  I  said  nothing  cf  it  to  you  when  we  were  together, 
though  I  had  made  up  my  mind,  because  I  wanted  to  come  upon 
you  with  that  little  burst  from  a  distance.     It  saemed  something 


192  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

like  meeting  again  when  I  remitted  the  money  and  thought  of  your 
talking  of  it. 

The  dryness  of  the  weather  is  amazing.  All  the  ponds  and  sur- 
face wells  about  here  are  waterless,  and  the  poor  people  suffer 
greatly.  The  people  of  this  village  have  only  one  spring  to  resort 
to,  and  it  is  a  couple  of  miles  from  many  cottages.  I  do  not  let  the 
great  dogs  swim  in  the  canal,  because  the  people  have  to  drink  of 
it.  But  when  they  get  into  the  Medway,  it  is  hard  to  get  them  out 
again.  The  other  day  Bumble  (the  son,  Newfoundland  dog)  got 
into  difficulties  among  some  floating  timber,  and  became  frightened. 
Don  (the  father)  whs  standing  by  me,  shaking  off  the  wet  and  look- 
ing on  carelessly,  when  all  of  a  sudden  he  perceived  something 
amiss,  and  went  in  with  a  bound  and  brought  Bumble  out  by 
the  ear.  The  scientific  way  in  which  he  towed  him  along  was 
charming. 

Ever  your  loving 

CD. 


During  the  summer  of  1868  constant  messages  and  let- 
ters came  from  Dickens  across  the  seas,  containing  pleas- 
ant references  to  his  visit  in  America,  and  giving  charming 
accounts  of  his  way  of  life  at  home.  Here  is  a  letter 
announcing  the  fact  that  he  had  decided  to  close  forever 
his  appearance  in  the  reading-desk  :  — 

Liverpool,  Friday,  October  30, 1868. 

My  dear :    I  ought  to  have  written  to  you  long  ago.     But 

I  have  begun  my  one  hundred  and  third  Farewell  Readings,  and 
have  been  so  busy  and  so  fatigued  that  my  hands  have  been  quite 
full.  Here  are  Dolby  and  I  again  leading  the  kind  of  life  that  you 
know  so  well.  We  stop  next  week  (except  in  London)  for  the 
month  of  November,  on  account  of  the  elections,  and  then  go  on 
again,  with  a  short  holiday  at  Christmas.  We  have  been  doing 
wonders,  and  the  crowds  that  pour  in  upon  us  in  London  are  be- 
yond all  precedent  or  means  of  providing  for.  I  have  serious 
thoughts  of  doing  the  murder  from  Oliver  Twist  •  but  it  is  so  hor- 
rible, that  I  am  going  to  try  it  on  a  dozen  people  in  my  London 
hall  one  night  next  month,  privately,  and  see  what  effect  it  makes. 

My  reason  for  abandoning  the  Christmas  number  was,  that  I  be- 
came weary  of  having  my  own  writing  swamped  by  that  of  other 
people.     This  reminds  me  of  the  Ghost  story.     I  don't  think  so  well 


n 


/ 


DICKENS.  193 


of  it,  my  dear  Fields,  as  you  do.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  too  obvi- 
ously founded  on  Bill  Jones  (in  Monk  Lewis's  Tales  of  Terror),  and 
there  is  also  a  remembrance  in  it  of  another  Sea-Ghost  story  en- 
titled, I  think,  ':  Stand  from  Under,"  and  written  by  I  don't  know 
whom.  Stand  from  under  is  the  cry  from  aloft  when  anything  is 
going   to   be  sent   down   on   deck,    and   the   ghost  is   aloft  on  a 

yard 

You  know  all  about  public  affairs,  Irish  churches,  and  party 
squabbles.  A  vast  amount  of  electioneering  is  going  on  about 
here;  but  it  has  not  hurt  us;  though  Gladstone  has  been  making 

speeches,   north,   east,   south,  and  west  of  us.     I  hear  that  C 

is  on  his  way  here  in  the  Russia.      Gad's  Hill  must  be   thrown 

open 

Your  most  affectionate 
.  Charles  Dickens. 

We  had  often  talked  together  of  the  addition  to  his 
repertoire  of  some  scenes  from  "  Oliver  Twist,"  and  the 
following  letter  explains  itself :  — 

Glasgow,  Wednesday,  December  16, 1868. 

My  dear :  .  .  .  .  And  first,  as  you  are  curious  about  the 

Oliver  murder,  I  will  tell  you  about  that  trial  of  the  same  at  which 
you  ought  to  have  assisted.  There  were  about  a  hundred  people 
present  in  all.  I  have  changed  my  stage.  Besides  that  back 
screen  which  you  know  so  well,  there  are  two  large  screens  of  the 
same  color,  set  off,  one  on  either  side,  like  the  "  wings  "  at  a  theatre. 
And  besides  those  again,  we  have  a  quantity  of  curtains  of  the  same 
color,  with  which  to  close  in  any  width  of  room  from  wall  to  wall. 
Consequently,  the  figure  is  now  completely  isolated,  and  the  slight- 
est action  becomes  much  more  important.  This  was  used  for  the 
first  time  on  the  occasion.  But  behind  the  stage  —  the  orchestra 
being  very  large  and  built  for  the  accommodation  of  a  numerous 
chorus  —  there  was  ready,  on  the  level  of  the  platform,  a  very  long 
table,  beautifully  lighted,  with  a  large  staff  of  men  ready  to  open 
oysters  and  set  champagne  corks  flying.  Directly  I  had  done,  the 
screens  being  whisked  off  by  my  people,  there  was  disclosed  one 
of  the  prettiest  banquets  you  can  imagine  ;  and  when  all  the  people 
came  up,  and  the  gay  dresses  of  the  ladies  were  lighted  by  those 
powerful  lights  of  mine,  the  scene  was  exquisitely  pretty  ;  the  hall 
being  newly  decorated,  and  very  elegantly ;  and  the  whole  looking 
like  a  great  bed  of  flowers  and  diamonds. 

Now,   you  must  know  that  all  this  company  were,  before  the 

9  M 


194  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


wine  went  round,  unmistakably  pale,  and  had  horror-stricken  faces. 
Next  morning,  Harness  (Fields  knows  —  Rev.  William  —  did  an 
edition  of  Shakespeare  —  old  friend  of  the  Kembles  and  Mrs.  Sid- 
dons),  writing  to  me  about  it,  and  saying  it  was  "  a  most  amazing 
and  terrific  thing,"  added,  "  but  I  am  bound  to  tell  you  that  I  had 
an  almost  irresistible  impulse  upon  me  to  scream,  and  that,  if  any 
one  had  cried  out,  I  am  certain  I  should  have  followed."     He  had 

no  idea  that  on  the  night  P ,  the  great  ladies'  doctor,  had  taken 

me  aside  and  said,  "  My  dear  Dickens,  you  may  rely  upon  it  that  if 
only  one  woman  cries  out  when  you  murder  the  girl,  there  will  be 
a  contagion  of  hysteria  all  over  this  place."  It  is  impossible  to 
soften  it  without  spoiling  it,  and  you  may  suppose  that  I  am  rather 
anxious  to  discover  how  it  goes  on  the  5th  of  January  !  !  !  We  are 
afraid  to  announce  it  elsewhere,  without  knowing,  except  that  I 
have  thought  it  pretty  safe  to  put  it  up  once  in  Dublin.     I  asked 

Mrs.  K ,  the  famous  actress,  who  was  at  the  experiment :  "  What 

do^/owsay?  Do  it,  or  not?"  "Why,  of  course,  do  it,"  she  re- 
plied. "  Having  got  at  such  an  effect  as  that,  it  must  be  done. 
But,"  rolling  her  large  black  eyes  very  slowly,  and  speaking  very 
distinctly,  "  the  public  have  been  looking  out  for  a  sensation  these 
last  fifty  years  or  so,  and  by  Heaven  they  have  got  it!"  With 
which  words,  and  a  long  breath  and  a  long  stare,  she  became  speech- 
less. Again,  you  may  suppose  that  I  am  a  little  anxious  !  I  had 
previously  tried  it,  merely  sitting  over  the  fire  in  a  chair,  upon  two 

ladies  separately,   one   of  whom  was  Gr .     They  had  both  said, 

"  0,  good  gracious  !  if  you  are  going  to  do  that,  it  ought  to  be  seen  ; 
but  it 's  awful."  So  once  again  you  may  suppose  I  am  a  little 
anxious!  .... 

Not  a  day  passes  but  Dolby  and  I  talk  about  you  both,  and  recall 
where  we  were  at  the  corresponding  time  of  last  year.  My  old 
likening  of  Boston  to  Edinburgh  has  been  constantly  revived  with- 
in these  last  ten  days.  There  is  a  certain  remarkable  similarity  of 
tone  between  the  two  places.  The  audiences  are  curiously  alike, 
except  that  the  Edinburgh  audience  has  a  quicker  sense  of  humor 
and  is  a  little  more  genial.  No  disparagement  to  Boston  in  this, 
because  I  consider  an  Edinburgh  audience  perfect. 

I  trust,  my  dear  Eugenius,  that  you  have  recognized  yourself  in 
a  certain  Uncommercial,  and  also  some  small  reference  to  a  name 
rather  dear  to  you  ?  As  an  instance  of  how  strangely  something 
comic  springs  up  in  the  midst  of  the  direst  misery,  look  to  a  suc- 
ceeding Uncommercial,  called  "  A  Small  Star  in  the  East,"  published 
to-day,  by  the  by.     I  have  described,  with  exactness,  the  poor  places 


DICKENS.  195 

into  which  I  went,  and  how  the  people  behaved,  and  what  they 
said.  I  was  wretched,  looking  on ;  and  yet  the  boiler-maker  and 
the  poor  man  with  the  legs  filled  me  with  a  sense  of  drollery  not 
to  be  kept  down  by  any  pressure. 

The  atmosphere  of  this  place,  compounded  of  mists  from  the 
highlands  and  smoke  from  the  town  factories,  is  crushing  my  eye- 
brows as  I  write,  and  it  rains  as  it  never  does  rain  anywhere  else, 
and  always  does  rain  here.  It  is  a  dreadful  place,  though  much 
improved  and  possessing  a  deal  of  public  spirit.  Improvement  is 
beginning  to  knock  the  old  town  of  Edinburgh  about,  here  and 
there  ;  but  the  Canongate  and  the  most  picturesque  of  the  horrible 
courts  and  wynds  are  not  to  be  easily  spoiled,  or  made  fit  for  the 
poor  wretches  who  people  them  to  live  in.  Edinburgh  is  so  changed 
as  to  its  notabilities,  that  I  had  the  only  three  men  left  of  the  Wil- 
son and  Jeffrey  time  to  dine  with  me  there,  last  Saturday. 

I  read  here  to-night  and  to-morrow,  go  back  to  Edinburgh  on  Fri- 
day morning,  read  there  on  Saturday  morning,  and  start  southward 
by  the  mail  that  same  night.  After  the  great  experiment  of  the 
5th,  —  that  is  to  say,  on  the  morning  of  the  6th,  —  we  are  off  to 
Belfast  and  Dublin.  On  every  alternate  Tuesday  I  am  due  in  Lon- 
don, from  wheresoever  I  may  be,  to  read  at  St.  James's  Hall. 

I  think  you  will  find  "  Fatal  Zero  "  (by  Percy  Fitzgerald)  a  very 
curious  analysis  of  a  mind,  as  the  story  advances.  A  new  beginner 
in  A.  Y.  E.  (Hon.  Mrs.  Clifford,  Kinglake's  sister),  who  wrote  a 
story  in  the  series  just  finished,  called  "  The  Abbot's  Pool,"  lias 
just  sent  me  another  story.     I  have  a  strong  impression  that,  with 

care,  she  will  step  into  Mrs.  G-askell's  vacant  place.     W is  no 

better,  and  I  have  work  enough  even  in  that  direction. 

God  bless  the  woman  with  the  black  mittens,  for  making  me 

laugh  so  this  morning  !     I  take  her  to  be  a  kind  of  public-spirited 

Mrs.  Sparsit,  and  as  such  take  her  to  my  bosom.     God  bless  you 

both,  my  dear  friends,  in  this  Christmas  and  New  Year  time,  and  in 

all  times,  seasons,  and  places,  and  send  you  to  Gad's  Hill  with  the 

next  flowers ! 

Ever  your  most  affectionate 

C.  D. 

All  who  witnessed  the  reading  of  Dickens  in  the  "  Oli- 
ver Twist "  murder  scene  unite  in  testifying  to  the  won- 
derful effect  he  produced  in  it.  Old  theatrical  habitues 
have  told  me  that,  since  the  days  of  Edmund  Kean  and 
Cooper,  no  mimetic  representation  had  been  superior  to  it. 


196  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

I  became  so  much  interested  in  all  I  heard  about  it,  that 
I  resolved  early  in  the  year  1869  to  step  across  the  water 
(it  is  only  a  stride  of  three  thousand  miles)  and  see  it 
done.  The  following  is  Dickens's  reply  to  my  announce- 
ment of  the  intended  voyage :  — 

A.  T.  K.  Office,  London,  Monday,  February  15, 1869. 

My  dear  Fields:  Hurrah,  hurrah,  hurrah!  It  is  a  remarkable 
instance  of  magnetic  sympathy  that  before  I  received  your  joyfully 
welcomed  announcement  of  your  probable  visit  to  England,  I  was 
waiting  for  the  enclosed  card  to  be  printed,  that  I  might  send  you 
a  clear  statement  of  my  Readings.  I  felt  almost  convinced  that 
you  would  arrive  before  the  Farewells  were  over.  What  do  you 
say  to  that  ? 

The  final  course  of  Four  Readings  in  a  week,  mentioned  in  the 
enclosed  card,  is  arranged  to  come  off,  on 

Monday,  June  7th  ; 

Tuesday,  June  8th ; 

Thursday,  June  10th;  and 

Friday,  June  11th  :  last  night  of  all. 

We  hoped  to  have  finished  in  May,  but  cannot  clear  the  country 
off1  in  sufficient  time.  I  shall  probably  be  about  the  Lancashire 
towns  in  that  month.  There  are  to  be  three  morning  murders  in 
London  not  yet  announced,  but  they  will  be  extra  the  London 
nights  I  send  you,  and  will  in  no  wise  interfere  with  them.  We 
are  doing  most  amazingly.  In  the  country  the  people  usually  col- 
lapse with  the  murder,  and  don't  fully  revive  in  time  for  the  final 
piece ;  in  London,  where  they  are  much  quicker,  they  are  equal  to 
both.  It  is  very  hard  work ;  but  I  have  never  for  a  moment  lost 
voice  or  been  unwell;  except  that  my  foot  occasionally  gives  me  a 
twinge.  We  shall  have  in  London  on  the  2d  of  March,  for  the 
second  murder  night,  probably  the  greatest  assemblage  of  notabili- 
ties of  all  sorts  ever  packed  together.     D continues  steady  in 

his  allegiance  to  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  sends  his  kindest  regard,  and 
is  immensely  excited  by  the  prospect  of  seeing  you.  Gad's  Hill  is 
all  ablaze  on  the  subject.  We  are  having  such  wonderfully  warm 
weather  that  I  fear  we  shall  have  a  backward  spring  there.  You  '11 
excuse  east-winds,  won't  you,  if  they  shake  the  flowers  roughly 
when  you  first  set  foot  on  the  lawn  ?  I  have  only  seen  it  once 
since  Christmas,  and  that  was  from  last  Saturday  to  Monday,  when 
I  went  there  for  my  birthday,  and  had  the  Forsters  and  Wilkie  ta 


DICKENS.  197 


keep  it.     I  had  had 's  letter  four  days  before,  and  drank  to  you 

both  most  heartily  and  lovingly. 

I  was  with  M a  week  or  two  ago.     He  is  quite  surprisingly 

infirm  and  aged.  Could  not  possibly  get  on  without  his  second  wife 
to  take  care  of  him,  which  she  does  to  perfection.  I  went  to  Chel- 
tenham expressly  to  do  the  murder  for  him,  and  we  put  him  in  the 
front  row,  where  he  sat  grimly  staring  at  me.  After  it  was  over,  he 
thus  delivered  himself,  on  my  laughing  it  off  and  giving  him  some 
wine:  "No,  Dickens — er  —  er  —  I  will  not,"  with  sudden  em- 
phasis, —  "  er  —  have  it  —  er  —  put  aside.  In  my  —  er  —  best 
times  —  er  —  you  remember  them,  my  dear  boy  —  er  —  gone,  gone  I 
—  no," — with  great  emphasis  again,  —  "it  comes  to  this  —  er  — 
two  Macbeths  !  "  with  extraordinary  energy.  After  which  he  stood 
(with  his  glass  in  his  hand  and  his  old  square  jaw  of  its  old  fierce 
form)  looking  defiantly  at  Dolby  as  if  Dolby  had  contradicted  him ; 
and  then  trailed  off  into  a  weak  pale  likeness  of  himself  as  if  his 
whole  appearance  had  been  some  clever  optical  illusion. 

I  am  away  to  Scotland  on  Wednesday  next,  the  17th,  to  finish 
there.  Ireland  is  already  disposed  of,  and  Manchester  and  Liver- 
pool will  follow  within  six  weeks.  "  Like  lights  in  a  theatre,  they 
are  being  snuffed  out  fast,"  as  Carlyle  says  of  the  guillotined  in  his 
Revolution.  I  suppose  I  shall  be  glad  when  they  are  all  snuffed 
out.     Anyhow,  I  think  so  now. 

The  N s  have  a  very  pretty  house  at  Kensington.     He  has 

quite  recovered,  and  is  positively  getting  fat.     I  dined  with  them 

last  Friday  at  F 's,   having  (marvellous  to  relate !)  a  spare  day 

in  London.  The  warm  weather  has  greatly  spared  F 's  bron- 
chitis ;  but  I  fear  that  he  is  quite  unable  to  bear  cold,  or  even  changes 
of  temperature,  and  that  he  will  suffer  exceedingly  if  east-winds 
obtain.  One  would  say  they  must  at  last,  for  it  has  been  blowing 
a  tempest  from  the  south  and  southwest  for  weeks  and  weeks. 

The  safe  arrival  of  my  boy's  ship  in  Australia  has  been  tele- 
graphed home,  but  I  have  not  yet  heard  from  him.  His  post  will 
be  due  a  week  or  so  hence  in  London.  My  next  boy  is  doing  very 
well,  I  hope,  at  Trinity  Hall,  Cambridge.  Of  my  seafaring  boy's 
luck  in  getting  a  death-vacancy  of  First  Lieutenant,  aboard  a  new 
ship-of-war  on  the  South  American  Station,  I  heard  from  a  friend, 
a  captain  in  the  Navy,  when  I  was  at  Bath  the  other  day ;  though 
we  have  not  yet  heard  it  from  himself.  Bath  (setting  aside  remem- 
brances of  Roderick  Random  and  Humphrey  Clinker)  looked,  I 
fancied,  just  as  if  a  cemetery-full  of  old  peopla  had  somehow  made 
%  successful  rise  against  death,  carried  the  place  by  assault,  and 


198  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

built  a  city  with  their  gravestones ;  in  which  they  were  trying  to 
look  alive,  but  with  very  indifferent  success. 

C is  no  better,  and  no  worse.     M and  G- send  all 

manner  of  loves,  and  have  already  represented  to  me  that  the  red- 
jacketed  post-boys  must  be  turned  out  for  a  summer  expedition  to 
Canterbury,  and  that  there  must  be  lunches  among  the  cornfields, 
walks  in  Cobham  Park,  and  a  thousand  other  expeditions.  Pray 
give  our  pretty  M to  understand  that  a  great  deal  will  be  ex- 
pected of  her,  and  that  she  will  have  to  look  her  very  best,  to  look 
as  I  have  drawn  her.  If  your  Irish  people  turn  up  at  G-ad's  at  the 
same  time,  as  they  probably  will,  they  shall  be  entertained  in  the 
yard,  with  muzzled  dogs.  I  foresee  that  they  will  come  over,  hay- 
making and  hopping,  and  will  recognize  their  beautiful  vagabonds 
at  a  glance. 

I  wish  Reverdy  Johnson  would  dine  in  private  and  hold  his 

tongue.     He  overdoes  the  thing.     C is  trying  to  get  the  Pope 

to  subscribe,  and  to  run  over  to  take  the  chair  at  his  next  dinner,  on 

which  occasion  Victor  Emmanuel  is  to  propose  C 's  health,  and 

may  all  differences  among  friends  be  referred  to  him.  With  much 
love  always,  and  in  high  rapture  at  the  thought  of  seeing  you 
both  here, 

Ever  your  most  affectionate 

C.  D. 

A  few  weeks  later,  while  on  his  reading  tour,  he  sent 

off  the  following  :  — 

Adelphi  Hotel,  Liverpool,  Friday,  April  9, 1869. 

My  dear  Fields  :  The  faithful  Russia  will  bring  this  out  to  you, 
as  a  sort  of  warrant  to  take  you  into  loving  custody  and  bring  you 
back  on  her  return  trip. 

I  have  been  "  reading  "  here  all  this  week,  and  finish  here  for 
good  to-night.  To-morrow  the  Mayor,  Corporation,  and  citizens 
give  me  a  farewell  dinner  in  St.  George's  Hall.  Six  hundred  and 
fifty  are  to  dine,  and  a  mighty  show  of  beauty  is  to  be  mustered 
besides.  N had  a  great  desire  to  see  the  sight,  and  so  I  sug- 
gested him  as  a  friend  to  be  invited.  He  is  over  at  Manchester  now 
on  a  visit,  and  will  come  here  at  midday  to-morrow,  and  go  back  to 
London  with  us  on  Sunday  afternoon.  On  Tuesday  I  read  in  Lon- 
don, and  on  Wednesday  start  off  again.  To-night  is  No.  68  out  of 
one  hundred.  I  am  very  tired  of  it,  but  I  could  have  no  such  good 
fillip  as  you  among  the  audience,  and  that  will  carry  me  on  gayly 
to  the  end.  So  please  to  look  sharp  in  the  matter  of  landing  on  the 
bosom  of  the  used-up,  worn-out,  and  rotten  old  Parient 


DICKENS.  199 


I  rather  think  that  when  the  12th  of  June  shall  have  shaken  off 
these  shackles,  there  will  be  borage  on  the  lawn  at  Gad's.  Your 
heart's  desire  in  that  matter,  and  in  the  minor  particulars  of  Cob- 
ham  Park,  Rochester  Castle,  and  Canterbury  shall  be  fulfilled,  please 
God!  The  red  jackets  shall  turn  out  again  upon  the  turnpike  road, 
and  picnics  among  the  cherry-orchards  and  hop-gardens  shall  be 
heard  of  in  Kent.  Then,  too,  shall  the  Uncommercial  resuscitate 
(being  at  present  nightly  murdered  by  Mr.  W.  Sikes)  and  uplift  his 
voice  again. 

The  chief  officer  of  the  Russia  (a  capital  fellow)  was  at  the  Read- 
ing last  night,  and  Dolby  specially  charged  him  with  the  care  of 
you  and  yours.  We  shall  be  on  the  borders  of  Wales,  and  probably 
about  Hereford,  when  you  arrive.  Dolby  has  insane  projects  of 
getting  over  here  to  meet  you ;  so  amiably  hopeful  and  obviously 
impracticable,  that  I  encourage  him  to  the  utmost.  The  regular 
little  captain  of  the  Russia,  Cook,  is  just  now  changed  into  the 
Cuba,  whence  arise  disputes  of  seniority,  etc.  I  wish  he  had  been 
with  you,  for  I  liked  him  very  much  when  I  was  his  passenger.  I 
like  to  think  of  your  being  in  my  ship! 

and have  been  taking  it  by  turns  to  be  "  on  the  point 

of  death,"  and  have  been  complimenting  one  another  greatly  on  the 
fineness  of  the  point  attained.  My  people  got  a  very  good  impres- 
sion of ,  and  thought  her  a  sincere  and  earnest  little  woman. 

The  Russia  hauls  out  into  the  stream  to-day,  and  I  fear  her  people 
may  be  too  busy  to  come  to  us  to-night.  But  if  any  of  them  do, 
they  shall  have  the  warmest  of  welcomes  for  your  sake.  (By  the 
by,  a  very  good  party  of  seamen  from  the  Queen's  ship  Donegal, 
lying  in  the  Mersey,  have  been  told  off  to  decorate  St.  George's 
Hall  with  the  ship's  bunting.  They  were  all  hanging  on  aloft  up- 
side down,  holding  to  the  gigantically  high  roof  by  nothing,  this 
morning,  in  the  most  wonderfully  cheerful  manner.) 

My  son  Charley  has  come  for  the  dinner,  and  Chappell  (my  Pro- 
prietor, as  —  isn't  it  Wemmick?  —  says)  is  coming  to-day,  and 
Lord  Dufferin  (Mrs.  Norton's  nephew)  is  to  come  and  make  the 
speech.  I  don't  envy  the  feelings  of  my  noble  friend  when  he  sees 
the  hall.  Seriously,  it  is  less  adapted  to  speaking  than  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  is  as  large 

I  hope  you  will  see  Fechter  in  a  really  clever  piece  by  Wilkie. 
Also  you  will  see  the  Academy  Exhibition,  which  will  be  a  very 
good  one ;  and  also  we  will,  please  God,  see  everything  and  more, 
and  everything  else  after  that.  I  begin  to  doubt  and  fear  on  the 
subject  of  your  having  a  horror  of  me  after  seeing  the  murder.     T 


200  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

don't  think  a  hand  moved  while  I  was  doing  it  last  night,  or  an  eye 
looked  away.  And  there  was  a  fixed  expression  of  horror  of  me, 
all  over  the  theatre,  which  could  not  have  been  surpassed  if  I  had 
been  going  to  be  hanged  to  that  red  velvet  table.  It  is  quite  a  new 
sensation  to  be  execrated  with  that  unanimity;  and  I  hope  it  will 
remain  so ! 

[Is  it  lawful  —  would  that  woman  in  the  black  gaiters,  green  veil, 
and  spectacles,  hold  it  so  —  to  send  my  love  to  the  pretty  M ?] 

Pack  up,  my  dear  Fields,  and  be  quick. 

Ever  your  most  affectionate 

C.  D. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Dickens  broke  down  en- 
tirely during  the  month  of  April,  being  completely  worn 
out  with  hard  work  in  the  Readings.  He  described  to 
me  with  graphic  earnestness,  when  we  met  in  May,  all 
the  incidents  connected  with  the  final  crisis,  and  I  shall 
never  forget  how  he  imitated  himself  during  that  last 
Beading,  when  he  nearly  fell  before  the  audience.  It  was 
a  terrible  blow  to  his  constitution,  and  only  a  man  of  the 
greatest  strength  and  will  could  have  survived  it.  When 
we  arrived  in  Queenstown,  this  note  was  sent  on  board 
our  steamer. 

Loving  welcome  to  England.     Hurrah ! 

Office  of  All  the  Year  Round,  Wednesday,  May  5, 1869. 

My  dear :    I  fear  you  will  have  been  uneasy  about  me,  and 

will  have  heard  distorted  accounts  of  the  stoppage  of  my  Readings. 
It  is  a  measure  of  precaution,  and  not  of  cure.  I  was  too  tired  and 
too  jarred  by  the  railway  fast  express,  travelling  night  and  day. 
No  half-measure  could  be  taken ;  and  rest  being  medically  considered 
essential,  we  stopped.  I  became,  thank  God,  myself  again,  almost 
as  soon  as  I  could  rest !  I  am  good  for  all  country  pleasures  with 
you,  and  am  looking  forward  to  Gad's,  Rochester  Castle,  Cobham 
Park,  red  jackets,  and  Canterbury.  When  you  come  to  London 
we  shall  probably  be  staying  at  our  hotel.  You  will  learn,  here, 
where  to  find  us.     I  yearn  to  be  with  you  both  again ! 

Love  to  M . 

Ever  your  affectionate  C.  D. 

I  hope  this  will  be  put  into  your  hands  on  board,  in  Queenstown 
Harbor. 


DICKENS.  20 1 


We  met  in  London  a  few  days  after  this,  and  I  found 
him  in  capital  spirits,  with  such  a  protracted  list  of  things 
we  were  to  do  together,  that,  had  I  followed  out  the  pre- 
scribed programme,  it  would  have  taken  many  more 
months  of  absence  from  home  than  I  had  proposed  to 
myself.  We  began  our  long  rambles  among  the  thor- 
oughfares that  had  undergone  important  changes  since  I 
was  last  in  London,  taking  in  the  noble  Thames  embank- 
ments, which  I  had  never  seen,  and  the  improvements  in 
the  city  markets.  Dickens  had  moved  up  to  London  for 
the  purpose  of  showing  us  about,  and  had  taken  rooms 
only  a  few  streets  off  from  our  hotel.  Here  are  two 
specimens  of  the  welcome  little  notes  which  I  constantly 
found  on  my  breakfast-table  :  — 

Office  of  All  the  Yeae  Round,  London,  Wednesday,  May  19, 1869. 

My  dear  Fields  :  Suppose  we  give  the  weather  a  longer  chance, 
and  say  Monday  instead  of  Friday.  I  think  we  must  be  safer  with 
that  precaution.  If  Monday  will  suit  you,  I  propose  that  we  meet 
here  that  day,  —  your  ladies  and  you  and  I,  —  and  cast  ourselves  on 
the  stony-hearted  streets.  If  it  be  bright  for  St.  Paul's,  good ;  if 
not,  we  can  take  some  other  lion  that  roars  in  dull  weather.  We 
will  dine  here  at  six,  and  meet  here  at  half  past  two.  So  if  you 
should  want  to  go  elsewhere  after  dinner,  it  can  be  done,  notwith- 
standing.    Let  me  know  in  a  line  what  you  say. 

O  the  delight  of  a  cold  bath  this  morning,  after  those  lodging- 
houses  !  And  a  mild  sniffler  of  punch,  on  getting  into  the  hotel 
last  night,  I  found  what  my  friend  Mr.  Wegg  calls,  "  Mellering.  sir, 
very  mellering." 

With  kindest  regards,  ever  affectionately, 

Charles  Dickens. 

Office  of  All  the  Year  Round,  London,  Tuesday,  May  25, 1869. 
My  dear  Fields:  First,  you  leave  Charing  Cross  Station,  by 
North  Kent  railway,  on  Wednesday,  June  2d,  at  2.10  for  Higham 
Station,  the  next  station  beyond  Gravesend.  Now,  bring  your 
lofty  mind  back  to  the  previous  Saturday,  next  Saturday.  There  is 
only  one  way  of  combining  Windsor  and  Richmond.  That  way 
will  leave  us  but  two  hours  and  a  half  at  Windsor.  This  would  not 
be  long  enough  to  enable  us  to  see  the  inside  of  the  castle,  but 
9* 


202  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

would  admit  of  our  seeing  the  outside,  the  Long  Walk,  ete.  I  will 
assume  that  such  a  survey  will  suffice.  That  taken  for  granted, 
meet  me  at  Waterloo  Terminus  (Loop  Line  for  Windsor)  at  10.35, 
•on  Saturday  morning. 

The  rendezvous  for  Monday  evening  will  be  here  at  half  past  eight. 
As  I  don't  know  Mr.  Eytinge's  number  in  Guildford  Street,  will 
you  kindly  undertake  to  let  him  know  that  we  are  going  out  with 
the  great  Detective  ?  And  will  you  also  give  him  the  time  and 
place  for  Gad's  ? 

I  shall  be  here  on  Friday  for  a  few  hours ;  meantime  at  Gad's 
.aforesaid. 

With  love  to  the  ladies,  ever  faithfully, 

C.  D. 

During  my  stay  in  England  in  that  summer  of  1869,  I 
made  many  excursions  with  Dickens  both  around  the  city 
and  into  the  country.  Among  the  most  memorable  of 
these  London  rambles  was  a  visit  to  the  General  Post- 
Office,  by  arrangement  with  the  authorities  there,  a  stroll 
among  the  cheap  theatres  and  lodging-houses  for  the  poor, 
a  visit  to  Furnival's  Inn  and  the  very  room  in  it  where 
"  Pickwick  "  was  written,  and  a  walk  through  the  thieves' 
quarter.  Two  of  these  expeditions  were  made  on  two 
•consecutive  nights,  under  the  protection  of  police  detailed 
for  the  service.  On  one  of  these  nights  we  also  visited 
the  lock-up  houses,  watch-houses,  and  opium-eating  estab- 
lishments. It  was  in  one  of  the  horrid  opium-dens  that 
lie  gathered  the  incidents  which  he  has  related  in  the 
opening  pages  of  "  Edwin  Drood."  In  a  miserable  court 
Ave  found  the  haggard  old  woman  blowing  at  a  kind  of 
pipe  made  of  an  old  penny  ink-bottle.  The  identical 
words  which  Dickens  puts  into  the  mouth  of  this  wretched 
creature  in  "  Edwin  Drood  "  we  heard  her  croon  as  we 
leaned  over  the  tattered  bed  on  which  she  was  lying. 
There  was  something  hideous  in  the  way  this  woman 
kept  repeating,  "  Ye  '11  pay  up  according,  deary,  won't 
ve  ? "  and  the  Chinamen  and  Lascars  made  never-to-be- 


DICKENS.  203 


forgotten  pictures  in  the  scene.  I  watched  Dickens  in- 
tently as  he  went  among  these  outcasts  of  London,  and 
saw  with  what  deep  sympathy  he  encountered  the  sad 
and  suffering  in  their  horrid  abodes.  At  the  door  of  one 
of  the  penny  lodging-houses  (it  was  growing  toward 
morning,  and  the  raw  air  almost  cut  one  to  the  bone),  I 
saw  him  snatch  a  little  child  out  of  its  poor  drunken 
mother's  arms,  and  bear  it  in,  filthy  as  it  was,  that  it 
might  be  warmed  and  cared  for.  I  noticed  that  when- 
ever he  entered  one  of  these  wretched  rooms  he  had  a 
word  of  cheer  for  its  inmates,  and  that  when  he  left  the 
apartment  he  always  had  a  pleasant  "  Good  night "  or 
"  God  bless  you  "  to  bestow  upon  them.  I  do  not  think 
his  person  was  ever  recognized  in  any  of  these  haunts, 
except  in  one  instance.  As  we  entered  a  low  room  in  the 
worst  alley  we  had  yet  visited,  in  which  were  huddled  to- 
gether some  forty  or  fifty  half-starved-looking  wretches, 
I  noticed  a  man  among  the  crowd  whispering  to  another 
and  pointing  out  Dickens.  Both  men  regarded  him  with 
marked  interest  all  the  time  he  remained  in  the  room, 
and  tried  to  get  as  near  him,  without  observation,  as  pos- 
sible. As  he  turned  to  go  out,  one  of  these  men  pressed 
forward  and  said,  *  Good  night,  sir,"  with  much  feeling, 
in  reply  to  Dickens's  parting  word. 

Among  other  places,  we  went,  a  little  past  midnight, 
into  one  of  the  Casual  Wards,  which  were  so  graphically 
described,  some  years  ago,  in  an  English  magazine,  by 
a  gentleman  who,  as  a  pretended  tramp,  went  in  on  a 
reporting  expedition.  "We  walked  through  an  avenue 
of  poor  tired  sleeping  forms,  all  lying  fiat  on  the  floor, 
and  not  one  of  them  raised  a  head  to  look  at  us  as  we 
moved  thoughtfully  up  the  aisle  of  sorrowful  humanity. 
I  think  we  counted  sixty  or  seventy  prostrate  beings, 
who  had  come  in  for  a  night's  shelter,  and  had  lain  down 
worn  out  with  fatigue  and  hunger.     There  was  one  pale 


204  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

young  face  to  which  I  whispered  Dickens's  attention,  and 
he  stood  over  it  with  a  look  of  sympathizing  interest  not 
to  be  easily  forgotten.  There  was  much  ghastly  comi- 
cality mingled  with  the  horror  in  several  of  the  places  we 
visited  on  those  two  nights.  We  were  standing  in  a  room 
half  filled  with  people  of  both  sexes,  whom  the  police 
accompanying  us  knew  to  be  thieves.  Many  of  these 
abandoned  persons  had  served  out  their  terms  in  jail  or 
prison,  and  would  probably  be  again  sentenced  under  the 
law.  They  were  all  silent  and  sullen  as  we  entered  the 
room,  until  an  old  woman  spoke  up  with  a  strong,  beery 
voice  :  "  Good  evening,  gentlemen.  We  are  all  wery  poor, 
but  strictly  honest."  At  which  cheerful  apocryphal  state- 
ment, all  the  inmates  of  the  room  burst  into  boisterous 
laughter,  and  began  pelting  the  imaginative  female  with 
epithets  uncomplimentary  and  unsavory.  Dickens's  quick 
eye  never  for  a  moment  ceased  to  study  all  these  scenes 
of  vice  and  gloom,  and  he  told  me  afterwards  that,  bad  as 
the  whole  thing  was,  it  had  improved  infinitely  since  he 
first  began  to  study  character  in  those  regions  of  crime 
and  woe. 

Between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock  on  one  of  the  even- 
ings I  have  mentioned  we  were  taken  by  Dickens's  fa- 
vorite Detective  W into  a  sort  of   lock-up  house, 

where  persons  are  brought  from  the  streets  who  have 
been  engaged  in  brawls,  or  detected  in  the  act  of  thiev- 
ing, or  who  have,  in  short,  committed  any  offence  against 
the  laws.  Here  they  are  examined  for  commitment  by  a 
sort  of  presiding  officer,  who  sits  all  night  for  that  pur- 
pose. We  looked  into  some  of  the  cells,  and  found  them 
nearly  filled  with  wretched-looking  objects  who  had  been 
brought  in  that  night.  To  this  establishment  are  also 
brought  lost  children  who  are  picked  up  in  the  streets  by 
the  police,  —  children  who  have  wandered  away  from 
their  homes,  and  are  not  old  enough  to  tell  the  magistrate 


DICKENS.  205 


where  they  live.  It  was  well  on  toward  morning,  and 
we  were  sitting  in  conversation  with  one  of  the  officers, 
when  the  ponderous  door  opened  and  one  of  these  small 
wanderers  was  brought  in.  She  was  the  queerest  little 
figure  I  ever  beheld,  and  she  walked  in,  holding  the  po- 
lice officer  by  the  hand  as  solemnly  and  as  quietly  if  she 
were  attending  her  own  obsequies.  She  was  between  four 
and  five  years  old,  and  had  on  what  was  evidently  her 
mother's  bonnet,  —  an  enormous  production,  resembling  a 
sort  of  coal-scuttle,  manufactured  after  the  fashion  of  ten 
or  fifteen  years  ago.  The  child  had,  no  doubt,  caught  up 
this  wonderful  head-gear  in  the  absence  of  her  parent, 
and  had  gone  forth  in  quest  of  adventure.  The  officer 
reported  that  he  had  discovered  her  in  the  middle  of  the 
street,  moving  ponderingly  along,  without  any  regard  to 
the  horses  and  vehicles  all  about  her.  When  asked  where 
she  lived,  she  mentioned  a  street  which  only  existed  in 
her  own  imagination,  and  she  knew  only  her  Christian 
name.  When  she  was  interrogated  by  the  proper  author- 
ities, without  the  slightest  apparent  discomposure  she 
replied  in  a  steady  voice,  as  she  thought  proper,  to  their 
questions.  The  magistrate  inadvertently  repeated  a  ques- 
tion as  to  the  number  of  her  brothers  and  sisters,  and  the 
child  snapped  out,  "  I  told  ye  wunst ;  can't  ye  hear  ? " 
When  asked  if  she  would  like  anything,  she  gayly  an- 
swered, "  Candy,  cake  and  candy."  A  messenger  was 
sent  out  to  procure  these  commodities,  which  she  in- 
stantly seized  on  their  arrival  and  began  to  devour.  She 
showed  no  signs  of  fear,  until  one  of  the  officers  untied 
the  huge  bonnet  and  took  it  off,  when  she  tearfully  in- 
sisted upon  being  put  into  it  again.  I  was  greatly  im- 
pressed by  the  ingenious  efforts  of  the  excellent  men  in 
the  room  to  learn  from  the  child  where  she  lived,  and 
who  her  parents  were.  Dickens  sat  looking  at  the  little 
figure  with  profound  interest,  and  soon  came  forward  and 


206  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


asked  permission  to  speak  with  the  child.  Of  course  his 
request  was  granted,  and  I  don't  know  when  I  have  en- 
joyed a  conversation  more.  She  made  some  very  smart 
answers,  which  convulsed  us  all  with  laughter  as  we  stood 
looking  on ;  and  the  creator  of  "  little  Nell "  and  "  Paul 
Donibey  "  gave  her  up  in  despair.  He  was  so  much  inter- 
ested in  the  little  vagrant,  that  he  sent  a  messenger  next 
morning  to  learn  if  the  rightful  owner  of  the  bonnet  had 
been  found.  Eeport  came  back,  on  a  duly  printed  form, 
setting  forth  that  the  anxious  father  and  mother  had  ap- 
plied for  the  child  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
had  borne  her  away  in  triumph  to  her  home. 

It  was  a  warm  summer  afternoon  towards  the  close  of 
the  day,  when  Dickens  went  with  us  to  visit  the  Lon- 
don Post-Office.  He  said :  "  I  know  nothing  which  could 
give  a  stranger  a  better  idea  of  the  size  of  London  than 
that  great  institution.  The  hurry  and  rush  of  letters ! 
men  up  to  their  chin  in  letters !  nothing  but  letters 
everywhere  !  the  air  full  of  letters  !  —  suddenly  the  clock 
strikes ;  not  a  person  is  to  be  seen,  nor  a  letter :  only  one 
man  with  a  lantern  peering  about  and  putting  one  drop- 
letter  into  a  box."  For  two  hours  we  went  from  room 
to  room,  with  him  as  our  guide,  up  stairs  and  down  stairs, 
observing  the  myriad  clerks  at  their  various  avocations, 
with  letters  for  the  North  Pole,  for  the  South  Pole,  for 
Egypt  and  Alaska,  Darien  and  the  next  street. 

The  "  Blind  Man,"  as  he  was  called,  appeared  to  afford 
Dickens  as  much  amusement  as  if  he  saw  his  work  then 
for  the  first  time  ;  but  this  was  one  of  the  qualities  of  his 
genius  ;  there  was  inexhaustibility  and  freshness  in  every- 
thing to  which  he  turned  his  attention.  The  ingenuity 
and  loving  care  shown  by  the  "  Blind  Man  "  in  decipher- 
ing or  guessing  at  the  apparently  inexplicable  addresses 
on  letters  and  parcels  excited  his  admiration.     "  What  a 


DICKENS.  207 

lesson  to  all  of  us,"  he  could  not  help  saying,  "  to  be  care- 
ful in  preparing  our  letters  for  the  mail ! "  His  own 
were  always  directed  with  such  exquisite  care,  however, 
that  had  he  been  brother  to  the  "Blind  Man,"  and  con- 
sidered it  his  special  work  in  life  to  teach  others  how 
to  save  that  officer  trouble,  he  could  hardly  have  done 
better. 

Leaving  the  hurry  and  bustle  of  the  Post-Office  behind 
us,  we  strolled  out  into  the  streets  of  London.  It  was 
past  eight  o'clock,  but  the  beauty  of  the  soft  June  sunset 
was  only  then  overspreading  the  misty  heavens.  Every 
sound  of  traffic  had  died  out  of  those  turbulent  thorough- 
fares ;  now  and  then  a  belated  figure  would  hurry  past 
us  and  disappear,  or  perhaps  in  turning  the  corner  would 
linger  to  "  take  a  good  look  "  at  Charles  Dickens.  But 
even  these  stragglers  soon  dispersed,  leaving  us  alone  in 
the  light  of  day  and  the  sweet  living  air  to  heighten  the 
sensation  of  a  dream.  We  came  through  White  Friars 
to  the  Temple,  and  thence  into  the  Temple  Garden,  where 
our  very  voices  echoed.  Dickens  pointed  up  to  Talfourd's 
room,  and  recalled  with  tenderness  the  merry  hours  they 
had  passed  together  in  the  old  place.  Of  course  we 
hunted  out  Goldsmith's  abode,  and  Dr.  Johnson's,  saw  the 
site  of  the  Earl  of  Essex's  palace,  and  the  steps  by  which 
he  was  wont  to  descend  to  the  river,  now  so  far  removed. 
But  most  interesting  of  all  to  us  there  was  "  Pip's  "  room, 
to  which  Dickens  led  us,  and  the  staircase  where  the  con- 
vict stumbled  up  in  the  dark,  and  the  chimney  nearest 
the  river  where,  although  less  exposed  than  in  "  Pip's  " 
days,  we  could  well  understand  how  "  the  wind  shook  the 
house  that  night  like  discharges  of  cannon,  or  breakings 
of  a  sea."  AVe  looked  in  at  the  dark  old  staircase,  so  dark 
on  that  night  when  "  the  lamps  were  blown  out,  and  the 
lamps  on  the  bridges  and  the  shore  were  shuddering," 
and  then  went  on  to  take  a  peep,  half  shuddering  our- 


208  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

selves,  at  the  narrow  street  where  "  Pip  "  by  and  by  found 
a  lodging  for  the  convict.  Nothing  dark  could  long  sur- 
vive in  our  minds  on  that  June  night,  when  the  whole 
scene  was  so  like  the  airy  work  of  imagination.  Past 
the  Temple,  past  the  garden  to  the  river,  mistily  fair,  with 
a  few  boats  moving  upon  its  surface,  the  convict's  story 
was  forgotten,  and  we  only  knew  this  was  Dickens's  home, 
where  he  had  lived  and  written,  lying  in  the  calm  light 
of  its  fairest  mood. 


Dickens  had  timed  our  visit  to  his  country  house  in 
Kent,  and  arranged  that  we  should  appear  at  Gad's  Hill 
with  the  nightingales.  Arriving  at  the  Highain  station 
on  a  bright  June  day  in  1869,  we  found  his  stout  little 
pony  ready  to  take  us  up  the  hill ;  and  before  we  had 
proceeded  far  on  the  road,  the  master  himself  came  out 
to  welcome  us  on  the  way.  He  looked  brown  and  hearty, 
and  told  us  he  had  passed  a  breezy  morning  writing  in 
the  chalet.  We  had  parted  from  him  only  a  few  days  be- 
fore in  London,  but  I  thought  the  country  air  had  already 
begun  to  exert  its  strengthening  influence,  —  a  process  he 
said  which  commonly  set  in  the  moment  he  reached  his 
garden  gate. 

It  was  ten  years  since  I  had  seen  Gad's  Hill  Place,  and 
I  observed  at  once  what  extensive  improvements  had 
been  made  during  that  period.  Dickens  had  increased 
his  estate  by  adding  quite  a  large  tract  of  land  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  road,  and  a  beautiful  meadow  at  the 
back  of  the  house.  He  had  connected  the  front  lawn,  by 
a  passageway  running  under  the  road,  with  beautifully 
wooded  grounds,  on  which  was  erected  the  Swiss  chalet, 
a  present  from  Fechter.  The  old  house,  too,  had  been 
greatly  improved,  and  there  was  an  air  of  assured  com- 
fort and  ease  about  the  charming  establishment.     No  one 


DICKENS.  209 


could  surpass  Dickens  as  a  host ;  and  as  there  were  cer- 
tain household  rules  (hours  for  meals,  recreation,  etc.),  he 
0  at  once  announced  them,  so  that  visitors  never  lost  any 
time  "  wondering  "  when  this  or  that  was  to  happen. 

Lunch  over,  we  were  taken  round  to  see  the  dogs,  and 
Dickens  gave  us  a  rapid  biographical  account  of  each  as 
we  made  acquaintance  with  the  whole  colony.  One  old 
fellow,  who  had  grown  superannuated  and  nearly  blind, 
raised  himself  up  and  laid  his  great  black  head  against 
Dickens's  breast  as  if  he  loved  him.  All  were  spoken 
to  with  pleasant  words  of  greeting,  and  the  whole  troop 
seemed  wild  with  joy  over  the  master's  visit.  "Linda" 
put  up  her  shaggy  paw  to  be  shaken  at  parting ;  and  as 
we  left  the  dog-houses,  our  host  told  us  some  amusing 
anecdotes  of  his  favorite  friends. 

Dickens's  admiration  of  Hogarth  was  unbounded,  and 
he  had  hung  the  staircase  leading  up  from  the  hall  of 
his  house  with  fine  old  impressions  of  the  great  master's 
best  works.  Observing  our  immediate  interest  in  these 
pictures,  he  seemed  greatly  pleased,  and  proceeded  at  once 
to  point  out  in  his  graphic  way  what  had  struck  his  own 
fancy  most  in  Hogarth's  genius.  He  had  made  a  study 
of  the  painter's  thought  as  displayed  in  these  works,  and 
his  talk  about  the  artist  was  delightful.  He  used  to  say 
he  never  came  down  the  stairs  without  pausing  with  new 
wonder  over  the  fertility  of  the  mind  that  had  conceived 
and  the  hand  that  had  executed  these  powerful  pictures 
of  human  life ;  and  I  cannot  forget  with  what  fervid 
energy  and  feeling  he  repeated  one  day,  as  we  were  stand- 
ing together  on  the  stairs  in  front  of  the  Hogarth  pic- 
tures, Dr.  Johnson's  epitaph,  on  the  painter :  — 

"  The  hand  of  him  here  torpid  lies, 

That  drew  the  essential  form  of  grace  ; 
Here  closed  in  death  the  attentive  eyes 
That  saw  the  manners  in  the  face." 

N 


2io  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS, 


Every  day  we  had.  out-of-door  games,  such  as  "  Bowls," 
"  Aunt  Sally,"  and  the  like,  Dickens  leading  off  with 
great  spirit  and  fun.  Billiards  came  after  dinner,  and 
during  the  evening  we  had  charades  and  dancing.  There 
was  no  end  to  the  new  divertisements  our  kind  host  was 
in  the  habit  of  proposing,  so  that  constant  cheerfulness 
reigned  at  Gad's  Hill.  He  went  into  his  work-room,  as 
he  called  it,  soon  after  breakfast,  and  wrote  till  twelve 
o'clock ;  then  he  came  out,  ready  for  a  long  walk.  The  coun- 
try about  Gad's  Hill  is  admirably  adapted  for  pedestrian 
exercise,  and  we  went  forth  every  day,  rain  or  shine,  for  a 
stretcher.  Twelve,  fifteen,  even  twenty  miles  were  not 
too  much  for  Dickens,  and  many  a  long  tramp  we  have 
had  over  the  hop-country  together.  Chatham,  Rochester, 
Cobham  Park,  Maidstone,  —  anywhere,  out  under  the 
open  sky  and  into  the  free  air !  Then  Dickens  was  at 
his  best,  and  talked.  Swinging  his  blackthorn  stick,  his 
lithe  figure  sprang  forward  over  the  ground,  and  it  took  a 
practised  pair  of  legs  to  keep  alongside  of  his  voice.  In 
these  expeditions  I  heard  from  his  own  lips  delightful 
reminiscences  of  his  early  days  in  the  region  we  were 
then  traversing,  and  charming  narratives  of  incidents 
connected  with  the  writing  of  his  books. 

Dickens's  association  with  Gad's  Hill,  the  city  of 
Rochester,  the  road  to  Canterbury,  and  the  old  cathedral 
town  itself,  dates  back  to  his  earliest  years.  In  "  Davia 
Copperfield,"  the  most  autobiographic  of  all  his  books,  we 
find  him,  a  little  boy,  (so  small,  that  the  landlady  is  called 
to  peer  over  the  counter  and  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  tiny 
lad  who  possesses  such  "  a  spirit,")  trudging  over  the  old 
Kent  Road  to  Dover.  "  I  see  myself,"  he  writes,  "  as 
evening  closes  in,  coming  over  the  bridge  at  Rochester, 
footsore  and  tired,  and  eating  bread  that  I  had  bought  foi 
supper.  One  or  two  little  houses,  with  the  notice,  '  Lodg- 
ings for  Travellers,'  hanging  out,  had  tempted  me  ;  but  1 


DICKENS.  2 1 1 


was  afraid  of  spending  the  few  pence  I  had,  and  was 
even  more  afraid  of  the  vicious  looks  of  the  trarnpers  I 
had  met  or  overtaken.  I  sought,  no  shelter,  therefore,  but 
the  sky ;  and  toiling  into  Chatham,  —  which  in  that 
night's  aspect  is  a  mere  dream  of  chalk,  and  drawbridges, 
and  mastless  ships  in  a  muddy  river,  roofed  like  Noah's 
arks,  —  crept,  at  last,  upon  a  sort  of  grass-grown  battery 
overhanging  a  lane,  where  a  sentry  was  walking  to  and 
fro.  Here  I  lay  down  near  a  cannon  ;  and,  happy  in  the 
society  of  the  sentry's  footsteps,  though  he  knew  no  more 
of  my  being  above  him  than  the  boys  at  Salem  House 
had  known  of  my  lying  by  the  wall,  slept  soundly  until 
morning."  Thus  early  he  noticed  "  the  trarnpers  "  which 
infest  the  old  Dover  Eoad,  and  observed  them  in  their 
numberless  gypsy-like  variety ;  thus  early  he  looked 
lovingly  on  Gad's  Hill  Place,  and  wished  it  might  be  his 
own,  if  he  ever  grew  up  to  be  a  man.  His  earliest  mem- 
ories were  filled  with  pictures  of  the  endless  hop-grounds 
and  orchards,  and  the  little  child  "  thought  it  all  extremely 
beautiful ! " 

Through  the  long  years  of  his  short  life  he  was  always 
consistent  in  his  love  for  Kent  and  the  old  surroundings. 
When  the  after  days  came  and  while  travelling  abroad, 
how  vividly  the  childish  love  returned !  As  he  passed 
rapidly  over  the  road  on  his  way  to  France  he  once  wrote : 
"  Midway  between  Gravesend  and  Eochester  the  widening 
river  was  bearing  the  ships,  white-sailed  or  black-smoked, 
out  to  sea,  when  I  noticed  by  the  wayside  a  very'  queer 
small  boy. 

" '  Halloa ! '  said  I  to  the  very  queer  small  boy,  '  where 
do  you  live  ? ' 

" '  At  Chatham,'  says  he. 

" '  What  do  you  do  there  ? '  said  I. 

" '  I  go  to  school,'  says  he. 

"  I  took  him  up  in  a  moment,  and  we  went  on.     Pres- 


212  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


ently  the  very  queer  small  boy  says,  '  This  is  Gad's  Hill 
we  are  corning  to,  where  Falstaff  went  out  to  rob  those 
travellers,  and  ran  away.' 

" '  You  know  something  about  Falstaff,  eh  ? '  said  I. 

" '  All  about  him,'  said  the  very  queer  small  boy.  '  I 
am  old  (I  am  nine)  and  I  read  all  sorts  of  books.  But  do 
let  us  stop  at  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  look  at  the  house 
there,  if  you  please  ! ' 

" '  You  admire  that  house/  said  I. 

" '  Bless  you,  sir,'  said  the  very  queer  small  boy,  '  when 
I  was  not  more  than  half  as  old  as  nine,  it  used  to  be  a 
treat  for  me  to  be  brought  to  look  at  it.  And  now  I  am 
nine,  I  come  by  n^self  to  look  at  it.  And  ever  since  I 
can  recollect,  my  father,  seeing  me  so  fond  of  it,  has  often 
said  to  me,  "  If  you  were  to  be  very  persevering  and  were 
to  work  hard,  you  might  some  day  come  to  live  in  it." 
Though  that 's  impossible ! '  said  the  very  queer  small 
boy,  drawing  a  low  breath,  and  now  staring  at  the  house 
out  of  window  with  all  his  might.  I  was  rather  annoyed 
to  be  told  this  by  the  very  queer  small  boy ;  for  that 
house  happens  to  be  my  house,  and  I  have  reason  to 
believe  that  what  he  said  was  true." 

What  stay-at-home  is  there  who  does  not  know  the 
Bull  Inn  at  Eochester,  from  which  Mr.  Tupman  and  Mr. 
Jingle  attended  the  ball,  Mr.  Jingle  wearing  Mr.  Winkle's 
coat  ?  or  who  has  not  seen  in  fancy  the  "  gypsy-tramp," 
the  "show-tramp,"  the  "cheap  jack,"  the  "tramp-chil- 
dren," and  the  "  Irish  hoppers  "  all  passing  over  "  the  Kent- 
ish Eoad,  bordered "  in  their  favorite  resting-place  "  on 
either  side  by  a  wood,  and  having  on  one  hand,  between 
the  road-dust  and  the  trees,  a  skirting  patch  of  grass  ? 
Wild-flowers  grow  in  abundance  on  this  spot,  and  it  lies 
high  and  airy,  with  the  distant  river  stealing  steadily 
away  to  the  ocean,  like  a  man's  life." 

Sitting  in  the  beautiful  chalet  during  his  later  years  and 


DICKENS.  213 


watching  this  same  river  stealing  away  like  his  own  life,  he 
never  could  find  a  harsh  word  for  the  tramps,  and  many 
and  many  a  one  has  gone  over  the  road  rejoicing  because 
of  some  kindness  received  from  his  hands.  Every  precau- 
tion was  taken  to  protect  a  house  exposed  as  his  was  to 
these  wild  rovers,  several  dogs  being  kept  in  the  stable- 
yard,  and  the  large  outer  gates  locked.  But  he  seldom 
made  an  excursion  in  any  direction  without  finding  some 
opportunity  to  benefit  them.  One  of  these  many  kind- 
nesses came  to  the  public  ear  during  the  last  summer  of 
his  life.  He  was  dressing  in  his  own  bedroom  in  the 
morning,  when  he  saw  two  Savoyards  and  two  bears  come 
up  to  the  Falstaff  Inn  opposite.  While  he  was  watching 
the  odd  company,  two  English  bullies  joined  the  little 
party  and  insisted  upon  taking  the  muzzles  off  the  bears 
in  order  to  have  a  dance  with  them.  "At  once,"  said 
Dickens,  "  I  saw  there  would  be  trouble,  and  I  watched 
the  scene  with  the  greatest  anxiety.  In  a  moment  I  saw 
how  things  were  going,  and  without  delay  I  found  myself 
at  the  gate.  I  called  the  gardener  by  the  way,  but  he 
managed  to  hold  himself  at  safe  distance  behind  the 
fence.  I  put  the  Savoyards  instantly  in  a  secure  position, 
asked  the  bullies  what  they  were  at,  forced  them  to 
muzzle  the  bears  again,  under  threat  of  sending  for  the 
police,  and  ended  the  whole  affair  in  so  short  a  time  that 
I  was  not  missed  from  the  house.  Unfortunately,  while 
I  was  covered  with  dust  and  blood,  for  the  bears  had 
already  attacked  one  of  the  men  when  I  arrived,  I  heard 
a  carriage  roll  by.  I  thought  nothing  of  it  at  the  time, 
but  the  report  in  the  foreign  journals  which  startled  and 
shocked  my  friends  so  much  came  probably  from  the 
occupants  of  that  vehicle.  Unhappily,  in  my  desire  to 
save  the  men,  I  entirely  forgot  the  dogs,  and  ordered  the 
bears  to  be  carried  into  the  stable-yard  until  the  scuffle 
should  be  over,  when  a  tremendous  tumult  arose  between 


214  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

the  bears  and  the  dogs.  Fortunately  we  were  able  to 
separate  them  without  injury,  and  the  whole  was  so  soon 
over  that  it  was  hard  to  make  the  family  believe,  when  I 
came  in  to  breakfast,  that  anything  of  the  kind  had  gone 
forward."  It  was  the  newspaper  report,  causing  anxiety 
to  some  absent  friends,  which  led,  on  inquiry,  to  this  re- 
hearsal of  the  incident. 

Who  does  not  know  Cobham  Park  ?  Has  Dickens  not 
invited  us  there  in  the  old  days  to  meet  Mr.  Pickwick, 
who  pronounced  it  "  delightful !  —  thoroughly  delightful," 
while  "  the  skin  of  his  expressive  countenance  was  rap- 
idly peeling  off  with  exposure  to  the  sun "  ?  Has  he 
not  invited  the  world  to  enjoy  the  loveliness  of  its  soli- 
tudes with  him,  and  peopled  its  haunts  for  us  again  and 
again  ? 

Our  first  real  visit  to  Cobham  Park  was  on  a  summer 
morning  when  Dickens  walked  out  with  us  from  his  own 
gate,  and,  strolling  quietly  along  the  road,  turned  at  length 
into  what  seemed  a  rural  wooded  pathway.  At  first  we  did 
not  associate  the  spot  in  its  spring  freshness  with  that 
morning  after  Christmas  when  he  had  supped  with  the 
"  Seven  Poor  Travellers,"  and  lain  awake  all  night  with 
thinking  of  them  ;  and  after  parting  in  the  morning  with 
a  kindly  shake  of  the  hand  all  round,  started  to  walk 
through  Cobham  woods  on  his  way  towards  London. 
Then  on  his  lonely  road,  "  the  mists  began  to  rise  in  the 
most  beautiful  manner  and  the  sun  to  shine ;  and  as  I 
went  on,"  he  writes,  "  through  the  bracing  air,  seeing  the 
hoar  frost  sparkle  everywhere,  I  felt  as  if  all  nature 
shared  in  the  joy  of  the  great  Birthday.  Going  through 
the  woods,  the  softness  of  my  tread  upon  the  mossy 
ground  and  among  the  brown  leaves  enhanced  the  Christ- 
mas sacredness  by  which  I  felt  surrounded.  As  the 
whitened  stems  environed  me,  I  thought  how  the  Founder 
of  the  time  had  never  raised  his  benignant  hand,  save  to 


DICKENS.  215 


bless  and  heal,  except  in  the  case  of  one  unconscious 
tree." 

Now  we  found  ourselves  on  the  same  ground,  sur- 
rounded by  the  full  beauty  of  the  summer-time.  The 
hand  of  Art  conspiring  with  Nature  had  planted  rhodo- 
dendrons, as  if  in  their  native  soil  beneath  the  forest- 
trees.     They  were  in  one  universal  flame  of  blossoms,  as 

far  as  the  eye  could  see.     Lord  and  Lady   D ,  the 

kindest  and  most  hospitable  of  neighbors,  were  absent ; 
there  was  not  a  living  figure  beside  ourselves  to  break  the 
solitude,  and  we  wandered  on  and  on  with  the  wild  birds 
for  companions  as  in  our  native  wildernesses.     By  and 
by  we  came  near  Cobham  Hall,  with  its  fine  lawns  and 
far-sweeping  landscape,  and  workmen  and  gardeners  and 
a  general  air  of  summer  luxury.     But  to-day  we  were  to 
go  past  the  hall  and  lunch  on  a  green  slope  under  the 
trees,  (was  it  just  the  spot  where  Mr.  Pickwick  tried  the 
cold  punch  and  found  it  satisfactory  ?     I  never  liked  to 
ask !)  and  after  making  the  old  woods  ring  with  the  clat- 
ter and  clink  of  our  noontide  meal,  mingled  with  floods 
of  laughter,  were  to  come  to  the  village,  and  to  the  very 
inn  from  which  the   disconsolate  Mr.  Tupman  wrote  to 
Mr.   Pickwick,  after   his   adventure  with   Miss  Wardle. 
There  is  the  old  sign,  and  here  we  are  at  the  Leather  Bot- 
tle, Cobham,  Kent.     "  There  's  no  doubt  whatever  about 
that,"     Dickens's  modesty  would  not  allow  him  to  go  in, 
so  we  made  the  most  of  an  outside  study  of  the  quaint  old 
place  as  we  strolled  by ;  also  of  the  cottages  whose  in- 
mates were  evidently  no  strangers  to  our  party,  but  were 
cared  for  by  them  as  English  cottagers  are  so  often  looked 
after  by  the  kindly  ladies  in  their  neighborhood.     And 
there  was  the  old  churchyard,  "  where  the  dead  had  been 
quietly  buried  '  in  the  sure  and  certain  hope '  which  Christ- 
mas-time inspired."     There  too  were  the  children,  whom, 
seeing  at  their  play,  he  could  not  but  be  loving,  remem- 


216  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


bering  who  had  loved  them !  One  party  of  urchins 
swinging  on  a  gate  reminded  us  vividly  of  Collins,  the 
painter.  Here  was  his  composition  to  the  life.  Every 
lover  of  rural  scenery  must  recall  the  little  fellow  on  the 
top  of  a  five-barred  gate  in  the  picture  Collins  painted, 
known  widely  by  the  fine  engraving  made  of  it  at  the 
time.  And  there  too  were  the  blossoming  gardens,  which 
now  shone  in  their  new  garments  of  resurrection.  The 
stillness  of  midsummer  noon  crept  over  everything  as  we 
lingered  in  the  sun  and  shadow  of  the  old  village.  Slowly 
circling  the  hall,  we  came  upon  an  avenue  of  lime-trees 
leading  up  to  a  stately  doorway  in  the  distance.  The 
path  was  overgrown,  birds  and  squirrels  were  hopping 
unconcernedly  over  the  ground,  and  the  gates  and  chains 
were  rusty  with  disuse.  "  This  avenue,"  said  Dickens,  as 
we  leaned  upon  the  wall  and  looked  into  its  cool  shadows, 
"  is  never  crossed  except  to  bear  the  dead  body  of  the  lord 
of  the  hall  to  its  last  resting-place ;  a  remnant  of  super- 
stition, and  one  which  Lord  and  Lady  D would  be 

glad  to  do  away  with,  but  the  villagers  would  never  hear 
of  such  a  thing,  and  would  consider  it  certain  death  to 
any  person  who  should  go  or  come  through  this  entrance. 
It  would  be  a  highly  unpopular  movement  for  the  present 
occupants  to  attempt  to  uproot  this  absurd  idea,  and  they 
have  given  up  all  thoughts  of  it  for  the  time." 

It  was  on  a  subsequent  visit  to  Cobham  village  that  we 
explored  the  "  College,"  an  old  foundation  of  the  reign  of 
Edward  III.  for  the  aged  poor  of  both  sexes.  Each 
occupant  of  the  various  small  apartments  was  sitting  at 
his  or  her  door,  which  opened  on  a  grassy  enclosure  with 
arches  like  an  abandoned  cloister  of  some  old  cathedral. 
Such  a  motley  society,  brought  together  under  such  un- 
natural circumstances,  would  of  course  interest  Dickens. 
He  seemed  to  take  a  profound  pleasure  in  wandering 
about   the   place,  which  was   evidently  filled  with   the 


DICKENS.  217 

associations  of  former  visits  in  his  own  mind.  Pie  was 
usually  possessed  by  a  childlike  eagerness  to  go  to  any 
spot  which  he  had  made  up  his  mind  it  was  best  to  visit, 
and  quick  to  come  away,  but  he  lingered  long  about  this 
leafy  old  haunt  on  that  Sunday  afternoon. 

Of  Cobham  Hall  itself  much  might  be  written  without 
conveying  an  adequate  idea  of  its  peculiar  interest  to 
this  generation.  The  terraces,  and  lawns,  and  cedar-trees, 
and  deer-park,  the  names  of  Edward  III.  and  Elizabeth, 
the  famous  old  Cobhams  and  their  long  line  of  distin- 
guished descendants,  their  invaluable  pictures  and  historic 
chapel,  have  all  been  the  common  property  of  the  past 
and  of  the  present.  But  the  air  of  comfort  and  hospitality 
diffused  about  the  place  by  the  present  owners  belongs 
exclusively  to  our  time,  and  a  little  Swiss  chalet  removed 
from  Gad's  Hill,  standing  not  far  from  the  great  house, 
will  always  connect  the  name  of  Charles  Dickens  with 
the  place  he  loved  so  well.  The  chalet  has  been  trans- 
ferred thither  as  a  tribute  from  the  Dickens  family  to  the 
kindness  of  their  friends  and  former  neighbors.  We 
could  not  fail,  during  our  visit,  to  think  of  the  connection 
his  name  would  always  have  with  Cobham  Hall,  though 
he  was  then  still  by  our  side,  and  the  little  chalet  yet  re- 
mained embowered  in  its  own  green  trees  overlooking  the 
sail-dotted  Medway  as  it  flowed  towards  the  Thames. 

The  old  city  of  Eochester,  to  which  we  have  already 
referred  as  being  particularly  well  known  to  all  Mr.  Pick- 
wick's admirers,  is  within  walking  distance  from  Gad's 
Hill  Place,  and  was  the  object  of  daily  visits  from  its 
occupants.  The  ancient  castle,  one  of  the  best  ruins  in 
England,  as  Dickens  loved  to  say,  because  less  has  been 
done  to  it,  rises  with  rugged  walls  precipitously  from  the 
river.  It  is  wholly  unrestored  ;  just  enough  care  has  been 
bestowed  to  prevent  its  utter  destruction,  but  otherwise  it 
stands  as  it  has  stood  and  crumbled  from  year  to  year 


218  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


We  climbed  painfully  up  to  the  highest  steep  of  its  loftiest 
tower,  and  looked  down  on  the  wonderful  scene  spread 
out  in  the  glory  of  a  summer  sunset.  Below,  a  cleai 
trickling  stream  flowed  and  tinkled  as  it  has  done  since 
the  rope  was  first  lowered  in  the  year  800  to  bring  the 
bucket  up  over  the  worn  stones  which  still  remain  to 
attest  the  fact.  How  happy  Dickens  was  in  the  beauty 
of  that  scene !  What  delight  he  took  in  rebuilding  the 
old  place,  with  every  legend  of  which  he«  proved  himself 
familiar,  and  repeopling  it  out  of  the  storehouse  of  his 
fancy.  "  Here  was  the  kitchen,  and  there  the  dining- 
hall !  How  frightfully  dark  they  must  have  been  in 
those  days,  with  such  small  slits  for  windows,  and  the 
fireplaces  without  chimneys  !  There  were  the  galleries ; 
this  is  one  of  the  four  towers ;  the  others,  you  will  under- 
stand, corresponded  with  this ;  and  now,  if  you  're  not 
dizzy,  we  will  come  out  on  the  battlements  for  the  view!" 
Up  we  went,  of  course,  following  our  cheery  leader  until 
■we  stood  among  the  topmost  wall-flowers,  which  were 
waving  yellow  and  sweet  in  the  sunset  air.  East  and 
west,  north  and  south,  our  eyes  traversed  the  beautiful 
garden  land  of  Kent,  the  land  beloved  of  poets  through 
the  centuries.  Below  lay  the  city  of  Rochester  on  one 
hand,  and  in  the  heart  of  it  an  old  inn  where  a  carrier 
was  even  then  getting  out,  or  putting  in,  horses  and 
wagon  for  the  night.  A  procession,  with  banners  and 
music,  was  moving  slowly  by  the  tavern,  and  the  quaint 
eostumes  in  which  the  men  were  dressed  suggested  days 
long  past,  when  far  other  scenes  were  going  forward  in 
this  locality.  It  was  almost  like  a  pageant  inarching  out 
of  antiquity  for  our  delectation.  Our  master  of  cere- 
monies revelled  that  day  in  repeopling  the  queer  old 
streets  down  into  which  we  were  looking  from  our  charm- 
ing elevation.  His  delightful  fancy  seemed  especially 
alert  on  that  occasion,  and  we  lived  over  again  with  him 


DICKENS.  219 


many  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  Rochester,  full  of  interest 
to  those  of  us  who  had  come  from  a  land  where  all  is 
new  and  comparatively  barren  of  romance. 

Below,  on  the  other  side,  was  the  river  Medway,  from 
whose  depths  the  castle  once  rose  steeply.  Now  the  debris 
and  perhaps  also  a  slight  swerving  of  the  river  from  its 
old  course  have  left  a  rough  margin,  over  which  it  would 
not  be  difficult  to  make  an  ascent.  Rochester  Bridge, 
too,  is  here,  and  the  "  windy  hills  "  in  the  distance ;  and 
again,  on  the  other  hand,  Chatham,  and  beyond,  the 
Thames,  with  the  sunset  tingeing  the  many-colored  sails. 
We  were  not  easily  persuaded  to  descend  from  our  pic- 
turesque vantage-ground ;  but  the  master's  hand  led  us 
gently  on  from  point  to  point,  until  we  found  ourselves,  be- 
fore we  were  aware,  on  the  grassy  slope  outside  the  castle 
wall.  Besides,  there  was  the  cathedral  to  be  visited,  and 
the  tomb  of  Richard  Watts,  "  with  the  effigy  of  worthy 
Master  Richard  starting  out  of  it  like  a  ship's  figure- 
head." 

After  seeing  the  cathedral,  we  went  along  the  silent 
High  Street,  past  queer  Elizabethan  houses  with  endless 
gables  and  fences  and  lattice-windows,  until  we  came  to 
Watts's  Charity,  the  house  of  entertainment  for  six  poor 
travellers.  The  establishment  is  so  familiar  to  all  lovers  of 
Dickens  through  his  description  of  it  in  the  article  enti- 
tled "  Seven  Poor  Travellers  "  among  his  "  Uncommercial" 
papers,  that  little  is  left  to  be  said  on  that  subject ;  except 
perhaps  that  no  autobiographic  sketch  ever  gave  a  more 
faithful  picture,  a  closer  portrait,  than  is  there  conveyed. 

Dickens's  fancy  for  Rochester,  and  his  numberless  asso- 
ciations with  it,  have  left  traces  of  that  city  in  almost 
everything  he  wrote.  From  the  time  when  Mr.  Snodgrass 
first  discovered  the  castle  ruin  from  Rochester  Bridge,  to 
the  last  chapter  of  Edwin  Drood,  we  observe  hints  of  the 
city's  quaintness   or  silence;    the  unending   pavements, 


220  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

which  go  on  and  on  till  the  wisest  head  would  be  puzzled 
to  know  where  Eochester  ends  and  where  Chatham  be- 
gins ,  the  disposition  of  Father  Time  to  have  his  own  un- 
impeded way  therein,  and  of  the  gray  cathedral  towers 
which  loom  up  in  the  background  of  many  a  sketch  and 
tale.  Eochester,  too,  is  on  the  way  to  Canterbury,  Dick- 
ens's best  loved  cathedral,  the  home  of  Agnes  Wickfield, 
the  sunny  spot  in  the  life  and  memory  of  David  Copper- 
field.  David  was  particularly  small,  as  we  are  told,  when 
he  first  saw  Canterbury,  but  he  was  already  familiar  with 
Eoderick  Eandom,  Peregrine  Pickle,  Humphrey  Clinker, 
Tom  Jones,  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  Don  Quixote,  Gil 
Bias,  and  Eobinson  Crusoe,  who  came  out,  as  he  says,  a 
glorious  host,  to  keep  him  company.  Naturally,  the  calm 
old  place,  the  green  nooks,  the  beauty  of  the  cathedral, 
possessed  a  better  chance  with  him  than  with  many  oth- 
ers, and  surely  no  one  could  have  loved  them  more.  In 
the  later  years  of  his  life  the  crowning-point  of  the  sum- 
mer holidays  was  "  a  pilgrimage  to  Canterbury." 

The  sun  shone  merrily  through  the  day  when  he  chose 
to  carry  us  thither.  Early  in  the  morning  the  whole 
house  was  astir ;  large  hampers  were  packed,  ladies  and 
gentlemen  were  clad  in  gay  midsummer  attire,  and,  soon 
after  breakfast,  huge  carriages  with  four  horses,  and  pos- 
tilions with  red  coats  and  top-boots,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  olden  time,  were  drawn  up  before  the  door.  Pres- 
ently we  were  moving  lightly  over  the  road,  the  hop- 
vines  dancing  on  the  poles  on  either  side,  the  orchards 
looking  invitingly  cool,  the  oast-houses  fanning  with  their 
wide  arms,  the  river  glowing  from  time  to  time  through 
the  landscape.  We  made  such  a  clatter  passing  through 
Eochester,  that  all  the  main  street  turned  out  to  see  the 
carriages,  and,  being  obliged  to  stop  the  horses  a  moment, 
a  shopkeeper,  desirous  of  discovering  Dickens  among  the 
party,  hit  upon  the  wrong  man,  and  confused  an  humbl* 


DICKENS.  221 


individual  among  the  company  by  calling  a  crowd,  point- 
ing him  out  as  Dickens,  aud  making  him  the  mark  of 
eager  eyes.  This  incident  seemed  very  odd  to  us  in  a 
place  he  knew  so  well.  On  we  clattered,  leaving  the 
echoing  street  behind  us,  on  and  on  for  many  a  mile,  until 
noon,  when,  finding  a  green  wood  and  clear  stream  by 
the  roadside,  we  encamped  under  the  shadow  of  the  trees 
in  a  retired  spot  for  lunch.  Again  we  went  on,  through 
quaint  towns  and  lonely  roads,  until  we  came  to  Canter- 
bury, in  the  yellow  afternoon.  The  bells  for  service  were 
ringing  as  we  drove  under  the  stone  archway  into  the 
soundless  streets.  The  whole  town  seemed  to  be  enjoy- 
ing a  simultaneous  nap,  from  which  it  was  aroused  by  our 
horses'  hoofs.  Out  the  people  ran,  at  this  signal,  into  the 
highway,  and  wre  were  glad  to  descend  at  some  distance 
from  the  centre  of  the  city,  thus  leaving  the  excitement 
behind  us.  We  had  been  exposed  to  the  hot  rays  of  the 
sun  all  day,  and  the  change  into  the  shadow  of  the  cathe- 
dral was  refreshing.  Service  was  going  forward  as  we  en- 
tered ;  we  sat  down,  therefore,  and  joined  our  voices  with 
those  of  the  choristers.  Dickens,  with  tireless  observation, 
noted  how  sleepy  and  inane  were  the  faces  of  many  of  the 
singers,  to  whom  this  beautiful  service  was  but  a  sicken- 
ing monotony  of  repetition.  The  words,  too,  were  gab- 
bled over  in  a  manner  anything  but  impressive.  He  was 
such  a  downright  enemy  to  form,  as  substituted  for  re- 
ligion, that  any  dash  of  untruth  or  unreality  was  abhor- 
rent to  him.  When  the  last  sounds  died  away  in  the 
cathedral  we  came  out  again  into  the  cloisters,  and  saun- 
tered about  until  the  shadows  fell  over  the  beautiful  en- 
closure. We  were  hospitably  entreated,  and  listened  to 
many  an  historical  tale  of  tomb  and  stone  and  grassy 
nook  ;  but  under  all  we  were  listening  to  the  heart  of  our 
companion,  who  had  so  often  wandered  thither  in  his  soli- 
tude, and  was  now  rereading  the  stories  these  urns  had 
prepared  for  him. 


222  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

During  one  of  his  winter  visits,  he  says  (in  "  Copper- 
field"):— 

"  Coming  into  Canterbury,  I  loitered  through  the  old 
streets  with  a  sober  pleasure  that  calmed  my  spirits  and 
eased  my  heart.  There  were  the  old  signs,  the  old  names 
over  the  shops,  the  old  people  serving  in  them.  It  ap- 
peared so  long  since  I  had  been  a  school-boy  there,  that 
I  wondered  the  place  was  so  little  changed,  until  I  re- 
flected how  little  I  was  changed  myself.  Strange  to  say, 
that  quiet  influence  which  was  inseparable  in  my  mind 
from  Agnes  seemed  to  pervade  even  the  city  where  she 
dwelt.  The  venerable  cathedral  towers,  and  the  old  jack- 
daws and  rooks,  whose  airy  voices  made  them  more  retired 
than  perfect  silence  would  have  done ;  the  battered  gate- 
ways, once  stuck  full  with  statues,  long  thrown  down  and 
crumbled  away,  like  the  reverential  pilgrims  who  had 
gazed  upon  them  ;  the  still  nooks,  where  the  ivied  growth 
of  centuries  crept  over  gabled  ends  and  ruined  walls  ;  the 
ancient  houses ;  the  pastoral  landscape  of  field,  orchard, 
and  garden  ;  —  everywhere,  in  everything,  I  felt  the  same 
serene  air,  the  same  calm,  thoughtful,  softening  spirit." 

Walking  away  and  leaving  Canterbury  behind  us  for- 
ever, we  came  again  into  the  voiceless  streets,  past  a 
"  very  old  house  bulging  out  over  the  road,  ....  quite 
spotless  in  its  cleanliness,  the  old-fashioned  brass  knocker 
on  the  low,  arched  door  ornamented  with  carved  garlands 
of  fruit  and  flowers,  twinkling  like  a  star,"  the  very  house, 
perhaps,  "with  angles  and  corners  and  carvings  and 
mouldings,"  where  David  Copperfield  was  sent  to  school. 
We  were  turned  off  with  a  laughing  reply,  when  we  ven- 
tured to  accuse  this  particular  house  of  being  the  one,  and 
were  told  there  were  several  that  "  would  do " ;  which 
was  quite  true,  for  nothing  could  be  more  quaint,  more 
satisfactory  to  all,  from  the  lovers  of  Chaucer  to  the  lov- 
ers of  Dickens,  than  this  same  city  of  Canterbury.     The 


DICKENS.  223 


sun  had  set  as  we  rattled  noisily  out  of  the  ancient 
place  that  afternoon,  and  along  the  high  road,  which  was 
quite  novel  in  its  evening  aspect.  There  was  no  lingering 
now ;  on  and  on  we  went,  the  postilions  flying  up  and 
down  on  the  backs  of  their  huge  horses,  their  red  coats 
glancing  in  the  occasional  gleams  of  wayside  lamps,  fire- 
flies making  the  orchards  shine,  the  sunset  lighting  up 
vast  clouds  that  lay  across  the  western  sky,  and  the 
whole  scene  filled  with  evening  stillness.  When  we 
stopped  to  change  horses,  the  quiet  was  almost  oppres- 
sive. Soon  after  nine  we  espied  the  welcome  lantern  of 
Gad's  Hill  Place  and  the  open  gates.  And  so  ended 
Dickens's  last  pilgrimage  to  Canterbury. 

There  was  another  interesting  spot  near  Gad's  Hill 
which  was  one  of  Dickens's  haunts,  and  this  was  the 
"  Druid-stone,"  as  it  is  called,  at  Maidstone.  This  is 
within  walking  distance  of  his  house,  along  the  breezy 
hillside  road,  which  we  remember  blossomy  and  wavy 
in  the  summer  season,  with  open  spaces  in  the  hedges 
where  one  may  look  over  wide  hilly  slopes,  and  at  times 
come  upon  strange  cuts  down  into  the  chalk  which  per- 
vades this  district.  We  turned  into  a  lane  from  the 
dusty  road,  and,  following  our  leader  over  a  barred  gate, 
came  into  wide  grassy  fields  full  of  summer's  bloom  and 
glory.  A  short  walk  farther  brought  us  to  the  Druid- 
stone,  which  Dickens  thought  to  be,  from  the  fitness  of 
its  position,  simply  a  vantage-ground  chosen  by  priests,  — 
whether  Druid  or  Christian  of  course  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  say,  —  from  which  to  address  a  multitude.  The 
rock  served  as  a  kind  of  background  and  sounding-board, 
while  the  beautiful  sloping  of  the  sward  upward  from  the 
speaker  made  it  an  excellent  position  for  out-of-door  dis- 
courses. On  this  day  it  was  only  a  blooming  solitude, 
where  the  birds  had  done  all  the  talking,  until  we  arrived 


224  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


It  was  a  fine  afternoon  haunt,  and  one  worthy  of  a  visit, 
apart  from  the  associations  which  make  the  place  dear. 

One  of  the  weirdest  neighborhoods  to  Gad's  Hill,  and 
one  of  those  most  closely  associated  with  Dickens,  is  the 
village  of  Cooling.  A  cloudy  day  proved  well  enough  for 
Cooling ;  indeed,  was  undoubtedly  chosen  by  the  adroit 
master  of  hospitalities  as  being  a  fitting  sky  to  show  the 
dark  landscape  of  "  Great  Expectations."  The  pony- 
carriage  went  thither  to  accompany  the  walking  party  and 
carry  the  baskets  ;  the  whole  way,  as  we  remember,  leading 
on  among  narrow  lanes,  where  heavy  carriages  were  sel- 
dom seen.  We  are  told  in  the  novel,  "  On  every  rail  and 
gate,  wet  lay  clammy,  and  the  marsh  mist  was  so  thick 
that  the  wooden  finger  on  the  post  directing  people  to  our 
village  —  a  direction  which  they  never  accepted,  for  they 
never  came  there  —  was  invisible  to  me  until  I  was  close 
under  it."  The  lanes  certainly  wore  that  aspect  of  never 
being  accepted  as  a  way  of  travel;  but  this  was  a  de- 
lightful recommendation  to  our  walk,  for  summer  kept 
her  own  way  there,  and  grass  and  wild-flowers  were  abun- 
dant. It  was  already  noon,  and  low  clouds  and  mists 
were  lying  about  the  earth  and  sky  as  we  approached  a 
forlorn  little  village  on  the  edge  of  the  wide  marshes  de- 
scribed in  the  opening  of  the  novel.  This  was  Cooling, 
and  passing  by  the  few  cottages,  the  decayed  rectory,  and 
straggling  buildings,  we  came  at  length  to  the  churchyard. 
It  took  but  a  short  time  to  make  us  feel  at  home  there, 
with  the  marshes  on  one  hand,  the  low  wall  over  which 
Pip  saw  the  convict  climb  before  he  dared  to  run  away ; 
"  the  five  little  stone  lozenges,  each  about  a  foot  and  a 
half  long,  ....  sacred  to  the  memory  of  five  little  broth- 
ers, ....  to  which  I  had  been  indebted  for  a  belief  that 
they  all  had  been  born  on  their  backs,  with  their  hands 
in  their  trousers  pockets,  and  had  never  taken  them  out 
in  this  state  of  existence  "  ;  —  all  these  points,  combined 


DICKENS.  225 

with  the  general  dreariness  of  the  landscape,  the  far- 
stretching  marshes,  and  the  distant  sea-line,  soon  revealed 
to  us  that  this  was  Pip's  country,  and  we  might  moment- 
ly expect  to  see  the  convict's  head,  or  to  hear  the  clank 
of  his  chain,  over  that  low  wall. 

We  were  in  the  churchyard  now,  having  left  the  pony 
within  eye-shot,  and  taken  the  baskets  along  with  us,  and 
were  standing  on  one  of  those  very  lozenges,  somewhat 
grass-grown  by  this  time,  and  deciphering  the  inscriptions. 
On  tiptoe  we  could  get  a  wide  view  of  the  marsh,  with 
the  wind  sweeping  in  a  lonely  limitless  way  through  the 
tall  grasses.  Presently  hearing  Dickens's  cheery  call,  we 
turned  to  see  what  he  was  doing.  He  had  chosen  a 
good  flat  gravestone  in  one  corner  (the  corner  farthest  from 
the  marsh  and  Pip's  little  brothers  and  the  expected  con- 
vict), had  spread  a  wide  napkin  thereupon  after  the 
fashion  of  a  domestic  dinner-table,  and  was  rapidly  trans- 
ferring the  contents  of  the  hampers  to  that  point.  The 
horrible  whimsicality  of  trying  to  eat  and  make  merry 
under  these  deplorable  circumstances,  the  tragic-comic 
character  of  the  scene,  appeared  to  take  him  by  surprise. 
He  at  once  threw  himself  into  it  (as  he  says  in  "  Copper- 
field"  he  was  wont  to  do  with  anything  to  which  he 
had  laid  his  hand)  with  fantastic  eagerness.  Having 
spread  the  table  after  the  most  approved  style,  he  sud- 
denly disappeared  behind  the  wall  for  a  moment,  trans- 
formed himself  by  the  aid  of  a  towel  and  napkin  into  a 
first-class  head-waiter,  reappeared,  laid  a  row  of  plates 
along  the  top  of  the  wall,  as  at  a  bar-room  or  eating-house, 
again  retreated  to  the  other  side  with  some  provisions, 
and,  making  the  gentlemen  of  the  party  stand  up  to  the 
wall,  went  through  the  whole  play  with  most  entire  grav- 
ity. When  we  had  wound  up  with  a  good  laugh,  and  were 
again  seated  together  on  the  grass  around  the  table,  we 

espied  two  wretched  figures,  not  the  convicts  this  time, 
10*  o 


220  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

although,  we  might  have  easily  persuaded  ourselves  so, 
but  only  tramps  gazing  at  us  over  the  wall  from  the  marsh 
side  as  they  approached,  and  finally  sitting  down  just  out- 
side the  churchyard  gate.  They  looked  wretchedly  hun- 
gry and  miserable,  and  Dickens  said  at  once,  starting  up, 
"  Come,  let  us  offer  them  a  glass  of  wine  and  something 
good  for  lunch."  He  was  about  to  carry  them  himself, 
when  what  he  considered  a  happy  thought  seemed  to 
strike  him.  "  You  shall  carry  it  to  them,"  he  cried,  turn- 
ing to  one  of  the  ladies  ;  "  it  will  be  less  like  a  charity 
and  more  like  a  kindness  if  one  of  you  should  speak  to 
the  poor  souls ! "  This  was  so  much  in  character  for 
him,  who  stopped  always  to  choose  the  most  delicate  way 
of  doing  a  kind  deed,  that  the  memory  of  this  little  inci- 
dent remains,  while  much,  alas !  of  his  wit  and  wisdom 
have  vanished  beyond  the  power  of  reproducing.  We 
feasted  on  the  satisfaction  the  tramps  took  in  their  lunch, 
long  after  our  own  was  concluded ;  and,  seeing  them  well 
off  on  their  road  again,  took  up  our  own  way  to  Gad's 
Hill  Place.  How  comfortable  it  looked  on  our  return ; 
how  beautifully  the  afternoon  gleams  of  sunshine  shone 
upon  the  holly -trees  by  the  porch ;  how  we  turned  away 
from  the  door  and  went  into  the  playground,  where  we 
bowled  on  the  green  turf,  until  the  tall  maid  in  her  spot- 
less cap  was  seen  bringing  the  five-o'clock  tea  thither- 
ward ;  how  the  dews  and  the  setting  sun  warned  us  at 
last  we  must  prepare  for  dinner ;  and  how  Dickens  played 
longer  and  harder  than  any  one  of  the  company,  scorn- 
ing the  idea  of  going  in  to  tea  at  that  hour,  and  beating 
his  ball  instead,  quite  the  youngest  of  the  company  up  to 
the  last  moment !  —  all  this  returns  with  vivid  distinctness 
as  I  write  these  inadequate  words. 

Many  days  and  weeks  passed  over  after  those  June 
days  were  ended  before  we  were  to  see  Dickens  again. 
Our  meeting  then  was  at  the  station  in  London,  on  oui 


DICKENS.  227 

way  to  Gad's  Hill  once  more.  He  was  always  early  at  a 
railway  station,  lie  said,  if  only  to  save  himself  the  un- 
necessary and  wasteful  excitement  hurry  commonly  pro- 
duces ;  and  so  he  came  to  meet  us  with  a  cheerv  manner, 
as  if  care  were  shut  up  in  some  desk  or  closet  he  had  left 
behind,  and  he  were  ready  to  make  the  day  a  gay  one, 
whatever  the  sun  might  say  to  it.  A  small  roll  of  manu- 
script in  his  hand  led  him  soon  to  confess  that  a  new  story 
was  already  begun ;  but  this  communication  was  made  in 
the  utmost  confidence,  as  if  to  account  for  any  otherwise 
unexplainable  absences,  physically  or  mentally,  from  our 
society,  which  might  occur.  But  there  were  no  gaps  dur- 
ing that  autumn  afternoon  of  return  to  Gad's  Hill.  He 
told  us  how  sunnner  had  brought  him  no  vacation  this 
year,  and  only  two  days  of  recreation.  One  of  those,  he 
said,  was  spent  with  his  family  at  "  liosherville  Gardens," 
"  the  place,"  as  a  huge  advertisement  informed  us,  "  to 
spend  a  happy  day."  His  curiosity  with  regard  to  all  en- 
tertainments for  the  people,  he  said  to  us,  carried  him 
thither,  and  he  seemed  to  have  been  amused  and  rewarded 
by  his  visit.  The  previous  Sunday  had  found  him  in 
London  ;  he  was  anxious  to  reach  Gad's  Hill  before  the 
afternoon,  but  in  order  to  accomplish  this  he  must  walk 
nine  miles  to  a  way  station,  which  he  did.  Coming  to 
the  little  village,  he  inquired  where  the  station  was,  and, 
being  shown  in  the  wrong  direction,  walked  calmly  down 
a  narrow  road  which  did  not  lead  there  at  all.  "  On  I 
went,"  he  said,  "  in  the  perfect  sunshine,  over  yellow 
leaves,  without  even  a  wandering  breeze  to  break  the  silence, 
when  suddenly  I  came  upon  three  or  four  antique  wooden 
houses  standing  under  trees  on  the  borders  of  a  lovely 
stream,  and,  a  little  farther,  upon  an  ancient  doorway  to  a 
grand  hall,  perhaps  the  home  of  some  bishop  of  the  olden 
time.  The  road  came  to  an  end  there,  and  I  was  obliged  to 
retrace  my  steps ;  but  anything  more  entirely  peaceful  and 


228  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

beautiful  in  its  aspect  on  that  autumnal  day  than  this  re- 
treat, forgotten  by  the  world,  I  almost  never  saw."  He  was 
easer,  too.  to  describe  for  our  entertainment  one  of  the 
yearly  cricket-matches  among  the  villagers  at  Gad's  Hill 
which  had  just  come  off.  Some  of  the  toasts  at  the  sup- 
per afterward  were  as  old  as  the  time  of  Queen  Anne. 
For  instance,  — 

"  More  pigs, 
Fewer  parsons  "  ; 

delivered  with  all  seriousness ;  a  later  one  was,  "  May  the 
walls  of 
polish ! " 


walls  of   old    England    never   be  covered  with  French 


Once  more  we  recall  a  morning  at  Gad's  Hill,  a  soft 
white  haze  over  everything,  and  the  yellow  sun  burning 
through.  The  birds  were  singing,  and  beauty  and  calm 
pervaded  the  whole  scene.  We  strayed  through  Cobham 
Park  and  saw  the  lovely  vistas  through  the  autumnal 
haze ;  once  more  we  reclined  in  the  cool  chalet  in  the 
afternoon,  and  watched  the  vessels  going  and  coining  upon 
the  ever-moving  river.  Suddenly  all  has  vanished ;  and 
now,  neither  spring  nor  autumn,  nor  flowers  nor  birds,  nor 
dawn  nor  sunset,  nor  the  ever-moving  river,  can  be  the 
same  to  any  of  us  again.  We  have  all  drifted  down  upon 
the  river  of  Time,  and  one  has  already  sailed  out  into  the 
illimitable  ocean. 


On  a  pleasant  Sunday  morning  in  October,  1869,  as  I 
sat  looking  out  on  the  beautiful  landscape  from  my 
chamber  window  at  Gad's  Hill,  a  servant  tapped  at  my 
door  and  gave  me  a  summons  from  Dickens,  written  in 
his  drollest  manner  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  bidding  me 
descend  into  his  study  on  business  of  great  importance. 
That  day  I  heard  from  the  author's  lips  the  first  chapters 


DICKENS.  229 

of  "  Edwin  Drood  "  the  concluding  lines  of  which  initial 
pages  were  then  scarcely  dry  from  the  pen.  The  story  is 
unfinished,  and  he  who  read  that  autumn  morning  with 
such  vigor  of  voice  and  dramatic  power  is  in  his  grave. 
This  private  reading  took  place  in  the  little  room  where 
the  great  novelist  for  many  years  had  been  accustomed  to 
write,  and  in  the  house  where  on  a  pleasant  evening  in 
the  following  June  he  died.  The  spot  is  one  of  the  love- 
liest in  Kent,  and  must  always  be  remembered  as  the 
last  residence  of  Charles  Dickens.  He  used  to  declare 
his  firm  belief  that  Shakespeare  was  specially  fond  of 
Kent,  and  that  the  poet  chose  Gad's  Hill  and  Eochester 
for  the  scenery  of  his  plays  from  intimate  personal  knowl- 
edge of  their  localities.  He  said  he  had  no  manner  of 
doubt  but  that  one  of  Shakespeare's  haunts  was  the  old 
inn  at  Eochester,  and  that  this  conviction  came  forcibly 
upon  him  one  night  as  he  was  walking  that  way,  and  dis- 
covered Charles's  Wain  over  the  chimney  just  as  Shake- 
speare has  described  it,  in  words  put  into  the  mouth  of 
the  carrier  in  King  Henry  IV.  There  is  no  prettier 
place  than  Gad's  Hill  in  all  England  for  the  earliest 
and  latest  flowers,  and  Dickens  chose  it,  when  he  had 
arrived  at  the  fulness  of  his  fame  and  prosperity,  as  the 
home  in  which  he  most  wished  to  spend  the  remainder 
of  his  days.  When  a  boy,  he  would  often  pass  the  house 
with  his  father  and  frequently  said  to  him,  "  If  ever  I 
have  a  dwelling  of  my  own,  Gad's  Hill  Elace  is  the  house 
I  mean  to  buy."  In  that  beautiful  retreat  he  had  for 
many  years  been  accustomed  to  welcome  his  friends,  and 
find  relaxation  from  the  crowded  life  of  London.  On  the 
lawn  playing  at  bowls,  in  the  Swiss  summer-house  charm- 
ingly shaded  by  green  leaves,  he  always  seemed  the  best 
part  of  summer,  beautiful  as  the  season  is  in  the  delight- 
ful region  where  he  lived. 

There  he  could  be  most   thoroughly  enjoyed,  for  he 


230  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

never  seemed  so  cheerfully  at  home  anywhere  else.  At 
his  own  table,  surrounded  by  his  family,  and  a  few  guests, 
old  acquaintances  from  town,  —  among  them  sometimes 
Forster,  Carlyle,  Reade,  Collins,  Layard,  Maclise,  Stone,  Ma- 
cready,  Talfourd,  —  he  was  always  the  choicest  and  live- 
liest companion.  He  was  not  what  is  called  in  society  a 
professed  talker,  but  he  was  something  far  better  and  rarer. 
In  his  own  inimitable  manner  he  would  frequently 
relate  to  me,  if  prompted,  stories  of  his  youthful  days, 
when  he  was  toiling  on  the  London  Morning  Chronicle, 
passing  sleepless  hours  as  a  reporter  on  the  road  in  a 
post-chaise,  driving  day  and  night  from  point  to  point  to 
take  down  the  speeches  of  Shiel  or  O'Connell.  He  liked 
to  describe  the  post-boys,  who  were  accustomed  to  hurry 
him  over  the  road  that  he  might  reach  London  in  advance 
of  his  rival  reporters,  while,  by  the  aid  of  a  lantern,  he 
was  writing  out  for  the  press,  as  he  flew  over  the  ground, 
the  words  he  had  taken  down  in  short-hand.  Those  were 
his  days  of  severe  training,  when  in  rain  and  sleet  and 
cold  he  dashed  along,  scarcely  able  to  keep  the  blinding 
mud  out  of  his  tired  eyes ;  and  he  imputed  much  of  his 
ability  for  steady  hard  work  to  his  practice  as  a  reporter, 
kept  at  his  grinding  business,  and  determined  if  possible 
to  earn  seven  guineas  a  week.  A  large  sheet  was  started 
at  this  period  of  his  life,  in  which  all  the  important 
speeches  of  Parliament  were  to  be  reported  verbatim  for 
future  reference.  Dickens  was  engaged  on  this  gigantic 
journal.  Mr.  Stanley  (afterwards  Lord  Derby)  had  spoken 
at  great  length  on  the  condition  of  Ireland.  It  was  a 
long  and  eloquent  speech,  occupying  many  hours  in 
the  delivery.  Eight  reporters  were  sent  in  to  do  the 
work.  Each  one  was  required  to  report  three  quarters  of 
an  hour,  then  to  retire,  write  out  his  portion,  and  to  be 
succeeded  by  the  next.  Young  Dickens  was  detailed  to 
lead  off  with  the  first  part.     It  also  fell  to  his  lot,  when 


DICKENS.  231 


the  time  came  round,  to  report  the  closing  portions  of  the 
speech.     On  Saturday  the  whole  was  given  to  the  press, 
and  Dickens  ran  down  to  the  country  for  a  Sunday's  rest. 
Sunday  morning  had  scarcely  dawned,  when  his  father, 
who  was  a  man  of  immense  energy,  made  his  appearance 
in  his  son's  sleeping-room.     Mr.  Stanley  was  so  dissatis- 
fied with  what  he  found  in  print,  except  the  beginning 
and  ending  of  his  speech  (just  what  Dickens  had  re- 
ported) that  he  sent  immediately  to  the  office  and  obtained 
the  sheets  of  those  parts  of  the  report.     He  there  found 
the  name  of  the  reporter,  which,  according  to   custom, 
was  written  on  the  margin.     Then  he  requested  that  the 
young  man  bearing  the  name  of  Dickens  should  be  im- 
mediately sent  for.     Dickens's  father,  all  aglow  with  the 
prospect  of  probable  promotion  in  the  office,  went  im- 
mediately to  his  son's  stopping-place  in  the  country  and 
brought   him   back   to   London.      In   telling   the    story, 
Dickens  said :  "  I  remember  perfectly  to   this    clay  the 
aspect  of  the  room  I  was  shown  into,  and  the  two  per- 
sons in  it,  Mr.  Stanley  and  his  father.     Both  gentlemen 
were  extremely  courteous  to  me,  but  I  noted  their  evident 
surprise  at  the  appearance  of  so  young  a  man.     While 
we  spoke  together,  I  had  taken  a  seat  extended  to  me  in 
the  middle  of  the  room.      Mr.  Stanley  told  me  he  wished 
to  go  over  the  whole  speech  and  have  it  written  out  by 
me,  and  if  I  were  ready  he  would  begin  now.     Where 
would  I  like  to  sit  ?     I  told  him  I  was  very  well  where  I 
was,  and  we  could  begin  immediately.    He  tried  to  induce 
me  to  sit  at  a  desk,  but  at  that  time  in  the  House  of 
Commons  there  was  nothing  but  one's  knees  to  write 
upon,  and  I  had  formed  the  habit  of  doing  my  work  in 
that  way.    Without  further  pause  he  began  and  went  rap- 
idly on,  hour  after  hour,  to  the  end,  often  becoming  very 
much  excited  and  frequently  bringing  down  his  hand 
with  great  violence  upon  the  desk  near  which  he  stood." 


232  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

I  have  before  me,  as  I  write,  an  unpublished  autograph 
letter  of  young  Dickens,  which  he  sent  off  to  his  employer 
in  November,  1835,  while  he  was  on  a  reporting  expedi- 
tion for  the  Morning  Chronicle.  At  that  early  stage  of 
his  career  he  seems  to  have  had  that  unfailing  accuracy 
of  statement  so  marked  in  after  years  when  he  became 
famous.  The  letter  was  given  to  me  several  years  ago  by 
one  of  Dickens's  brother  reporters.      Thus  it  runs  :  — 

George  and  Pelican,  Newbury,  Sunday  Morning. 

Dear  Fraser  :  In  conjunction  with  The  Herald  we  have  arranged 
for  a  Horse  Express  from  Marlborough  to  London  on  Tuesday 
night,  to  go  the  whole  distance  at  the  rate  of  thirteen  miles  an  hour, 
for  six  guineas  :  half  has  been  paid,  but,  to  insure  despatch,  the  re- 
mainder is  withheld  until  the  boy  arrives  at  the  office,  when  he  will 
produce  a  paper  with  a  copy  of  the  agreement  on  one  side,  and  an 
order  for  three  guineas  (signed  by  myself)  on  the  other.  Will  you 
take  care  that  it  is  duly  honored  ?  A  Boy  from  The  Herald  will  be 
in  waiting  at  our  office  for  their  copy ;  and  Lyons  begs  me  to  remind 
you  most  strongly  that  it  is  an  indispensable  part  of  our  agreement 
that  he  should  not  be  detained  one  instant. 

We  go  to  Bristol  to-day,  and  if  we  are  equally  fortunate  in  laying 
the  chaise-horses,  I  hope  the  packet  will  reach  town  by  seven.  As 
all  the  papers  have  arranged  to  leave  Bristol  the  moment  Russell  is 
down,  we  have  determined  on  adopting  the  same  plan,  —  one  of  us 
will  go  to  Marlborough  in  the  chaise  with  one  Herald  man,  and  the 
other  remain  at  Bristol  with  the  second  Herald  man  to  conclude  the 
account  for  the  next  day.  The  Times  has  ordered  a  chaise  and  four 
the  whole  distance,  so  there  is  every  probability  of  our  beating  them 
hollow.  From  all  we  hear,  we  think  the  Herald,  relying  on  the 
packet  reaching  town  early,  intends  publishing  the  report  in  their 
first  Edition.  This  is  however,  of  course,  mere  speculation  on  our 
parts,  as  we  have  no  direct  means  of  ascertaining  their  intention. 

I  think  1  have  now  given  you  all  needful  information.     I  have 

only  in  conclusion  to  impress  upon  you  the  necessity  of  having  all 

the  compositors  ready,  at  a  very  early  hour,  for  if  Russell  be  down 

by  half  past  eight,  we  hope  to  have  his  speech  in  town  at  six. 

Believe  me  (for  self  and  Beard)  very  truly  yours, 

Charles  Dickens. 
Nov.,  1835. 

Thomas  Fraser,  Esq.,  Morning  Chronicle  Office. 


DICKENS.  233 


No  writer  ever  lived  whose  method  was  more  exact, 
whose  industry  was  more  constant,  and  whose  punctual- 
ity was  more  marked,  than  those  of  Charles  Dickens. 
He  never  shirked  labor,  mental  or  bodily.  He  rarely  de- 
clined, if  the  object  were  a  good  one,  taking  the  chair  at 
a  public  meeting,  or  accepting  a  charitable  trust.  Many 
widows  and  orphans  of  deceased  literary  men  have  for 
years  been  benefited  by  his  wise  trusteeship  or  counsel, 
and  he  spent  a  great  portion  of  his  time  personally  look- 
ing after  the  property  of  the  poor  whose  interests  were 
under  his  control.  He  was,  as  has  been  intimated,  one 
of  the  most  industrious  of  men,  and  marvellous  stories 
are  told  (not  by  himself)  of  what  he  has  accomplished  in 
a  given  time  in  literary  and  social  matters.  His  studies 
were  all  from  nature  and  life,  and  his  habits  of  observa- 
tion were  untiring.  If  he  contemplated  writing  "  Hard 
Times,"  he  arranged  with  the  master  of  Astley's  circus  to 
spend  many  hours  behind  the  scenes  with  the  riders  and 
among  the  horses ;  and  if  the  composition  of  the  "  Tale 
of  Two  Cities  "  were  occupying  his  thoughts,  he  coidd 
banish  himself  to  France  for  two  years  to  prepare  for  that 
great  work.  Hogarth  pencilled  on  his  thumb-nail  a  strik- 
ing face  in  a  crowd  that  he  wished  to  preserve ;  Dickens 
with  his  transcendent  memory  chronicled  in  his  mind 
whatever  of  interest  met  his  eye  or  reached  his  ear,  any 
time  or  anywhere.  Speaking  of  memory  one  day,  he  said 
the  memory  of  children  was  prodigious ;  it  was  a  mistake 
to  fancy  children  ever  forgot  anything.  When  he  was 
delineating  the  character  of  Mrs.  Pipchin,  he  had  in  his 
mind  an  old  lodging-house  keeper  in  an  English  watering- 
place  where  he  wTas  living  with  his  father  and  mother 
when  he  was  but  two  years  old.  After  the  book  was 
written  he  sent  it  to  his  sister,  who  wrote  back  at  once : 
"  Good  heavens  !  what  does  this  mean  ?  you  have  painted 
our  lodging-house  keeper,  and  you  were  but  two  years  old 


234  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


at  that  time  ! "  Characters  and  incidents  crowded  the 
chambers  of  his  brain,  all  ready  for  use  when  occasion 
required.  No  subject  of  human  interest  was  ever  indiffer- 
ent to  him,  and  never  a  day  went  by  that  did  not  afford 
him  some  suggestion  to  be  utilized  in  the  future. 

His  favorite  mode  of  exercise  was  walking ;  and  when 
in  America,  scarcely  a  day  passed,  no  matter  what  the 
weather,  that  he  did  not  accomplish  his  eight  or  ten  miles. 
It  was  on  these  expeditions  that  he  liked  to  recount  to 
the  companion  of  his  rambles  stories  and  incidents  of  his 
early  life  ;  and  when  he  was  in  the  mood,  his  fun  and 
humor  knew  no  bounds.  He  would  then  frequently  dis- 
cuss the  numerous  characters  in  his  delightful  books,  and 
would  act  out,  on  the  road,  dramatic  situations,  where 
Nickleby  or  Copperfield  or  Swiveller  would  play  distin- 
guished parts.  I  remember  he  said,  on  one  of  these  occa- 
sions, that  during  the  composition  of  his  first  stories  he 
could  never  entirely  dismiss  the  characters  about  whom  he 
happened  to  be  writing ;  that  while  the  "  Old  Curiosity 
Shop  "  was  in  process  of  composition  Little  Nell  followed 
him  about  everywhere  ;  that  while  he  was  writing  "  Oliver 
Twist "  Fagin  the  Jew  would  never  let  him  rest,  even  in 
his  most  retired  moments ;  that  at  midnight  and  in  the 
morning,  on  the  sea  and  on  the  land,  Tiny  Tim  and 
Little  Bob  Cratchit  were  ever  tugging  at  his  coat-sleeve, 
as  if  impatient  for  him  to  get  back  to  his  desk  and  con- 
tinue the  story  of  their  lives.  But  he  said  after  he  had 
published  several  books,  and  saw  what  serious  demands 
his  characters  were  accustomed  to  make  for  the  constant 
attention  of  his  already  overtasked  brain,  he  resolved  that 
the  phantom  individuals  should  no  longer  intrude  on  his 
hours  of  recreation  and  rest,  but  that  when  he  closed  the 
door  of  his  study  he  would  shut  them  all  in,  and  only  meet 
them  again  when  he  came  back  to  resume  his  task.  That 
force  of  will  with  which  he  was  so  pre-eminently  en- 


DICKENS.  235 

dowed  enabled  him  to  ignore  these  manifold  existences 
till  he  chose  to  renew  their  acquaintance.  He  said,  also, 
that  when  the  children  of  his  brain  had  once  been 
launched,  free  and  clear  of  him,  into  the  world,  they 
would  sometimes  turn  up  in  the  most  unexpected  manner 
to  look  their  father  in  the  face. 

Sometimes  he  would  pull  my  arm  while  we  were  walk- 
ing together  and  whisper,  "  Let  us  avoid  Mr.  Pumble- 
chook,  who  is  crossing  the  street  to  meet  us  " ;  or,  "  Mr. 
Micawber  is  coming ;  let  us  turn  down  this  alley  to  get 
out  of  his  way."  He  always  seemed  to  enjoy  the  fun  of 
his  comic  people,  and  had  unceasing  mirth  over  Mr.  Pick- 
wick's misadventures.  In  answer  one  day  to  a  question, 
prompted  by  psychological  curiosity,  if  he  ever  dreamed 
of  any  of  his  characters,  his  reply  was,  "Never;  and  I 
am  convinced  that  no  writer  (judging  from  my  own  ex- 
perience, which  cannot  be  altogether  singular,  but  must 
be  a  type  of  the  experience  of  others)  has  ever  dreamed 
of  the  creatures  of  his  own  imagination.  It  would,"  he 
went  on  to  say,  "  be  like  a  man's  dreaming  of  meeting 
himself,  which  is  clearly  an  impossibility.  Things  ex- 
terior to  one's  self  must  always  be  the  basis  of  dreams." 
The  growing  up  of  characters  in  his  mind  never  lost  for 
him  a  sense  of  the  marvellous.  "  What  an  unfathomable 
mystery  there  is  in  it  all ! "  he  said  one  day.  Taking  up 
a  wineglass,  he  continued :  "  Suppose  I  choose  to  call  this 
a  character,  fancy  it  a  man,  endue  it  with  certain  qualities ; 
and  soon  the  fine  filmy  webs  of  thought,  almost  impalpa- 
ble, coming  from  every  direction,  we  know  not  whence, 
spin  and  weave  about  it,  until  it  assumes  form  and 
beauty,  and  becomes  instinct  with  life." 

In  society  Dickens  rarely  referred  to  the  traits  and 
characteristics  of  people  he  had  known ;  but  during  a 
long  walk  in  the  country  he  delighted  to  recall  and 
describe  the  peculiarities,  eccentric  and  otherwise,  of  dead 


236  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  gone  as  well  as  living  friends.  Then  Sydney  Smith 
and  Jeffrey  and  Christopher  North  and  Talfourd  and 
Hood  and  Eogers  seemed  to  live  over  again  in  his  vivid 
reproductions,  made  so  impressive  by  his  marvellous 
memory  and  imagination.  As  he  walked  rapidly  along 
the  road,  he  appeared  to  enjoy  the  keen  zest  of  his  com- 
panion in  the  numerous  impersonations  with  which  he 
was  indulging  him. 

He  always  had  much  to  say  of  animals  as  well  as  of 
men,  and  there  were  certain  dogs  and  horses  he  had  met 
and  known  intimately  which  it  was  specially  interesting 
to  him  to  remember  and  picture.  There  was  a  particular 
dog  in  Washington  which  he  was  never  tired  of  delineat- 
ing. The  first  night  Dickens  read  in  the  Capital  this  dog 
attracted  his  attention.  "  He  came  into  the  hall  by  him- 
self," said  he,  "  got  a  good  place  before  the  reading  began, 
and  paid  strict  attention  throughout.  He  came  the  second 
night,  and  was  ignominiously  shown  out  by  one  of  the 
check-takers.  On  the  third  night  he  appeared  again  with 
another  dog,  which  he  had  evidently  promised  to  pass  in 
free  ;  but  you  see,"  continued  Dickens,  "  upon  the  imposi- 
tion being  unmasked,  the  other  dog  apologized  by  a  howl 
and  withdrew.  His  intentions,  no  doubt,  were  of  the 
best,  but  he  afterwards  rose  to  explain  outside,  with  such 
inconvenient  eloquence  to  the  reader  and  his  audience, 
that  they  were  obliged  to  put  him  down  stairs." 

He  was  such  a  firm  believer  in  the  mental  faculties  of 
animals,  that  it  would  have  gone  hard  with  a  companion 
with  whom  he  was  talking,  if  a  doubt  were  thrown,  how- 
ever inadvertently,  on  the  mental  intelligence  of  any  four- 
footed  friend  that  chanced  to  be  at  the  time  the  subject 
of  conversation.  All  animals  which  he  took  under  his 
especial  patronage  seemed  to  have  a  marked  affection  for 
him.  Quite  a  colony  of  dogs  has  always  been  a  feature 
at  Gad's  Hill. 


DICKENS.  237 


In  many  walks  and  talks  with  Dickens,  his  conversa- 
tion, now,  alas  !  so  imperfectly  recalled,  frequently  ran  on 
the  habits  of  birds,  the  raven,  of  course,  interesting  him 
particularly.  He  always  liked  to  have  a  raven  hopping 
about  his  grounds,  and  whoever  has  read  the  new  Preface 
to  "  Barnaby  Eudge "  must  remember  several  of  his  old 
friends  in  that  line.  He  had  quite  a  fund  of  canary-bird 
anecdotes,  and  the  pert  ways  of  birds  that  picked  up 
worms  for  a  living  afforded  him  infinite  amusement.  He 
would  give  a  capital  imitation  of  the  way  a  robin-red- 
breast cocks  his  head  on  one  side  preliminary  to  a  dash 
forward  in  the  direction  of  a  wriggling  victim.  There  is 
a  small  grave  at  Gad's  Hill  to  which  Dickens  would 
occasionally  take  a  friend,  and  it  was  quite  a  privilege  to 
stand  with  him  beside  the  burial-place  of  little  Dick,  the 
family's  favorite  canary. 

What  a  treat  it  was  to  go  with  him  to  the  London 
Zoological  Gardens,  a  place  he  greatly  delighted  in  at  all 
times !  He  knew  the  zoological  address  of  every  animal, 
bird,  and  fish  of  any  distinction ;  and  he  could,  without 
the  slightest  hesitation,  on  entering  the  grounds,  proceed 
straightway  to  the  celebrities  of  claw  or  foot  or  fin.  The 
delight  he  took  in  the  hippopotamus  family  was  most  ex- 
hilarating. He  entered  familiarly  into  conversation  with 
the  huge,  unwieldy  creatures,  and  they  seemed  to  under- 
stand him.  Indeed,  he  spoke  to  all  the  unphilological  in- 
habitants with  a  directness  and  tact  which  went  home  to 
them  at  once.  He  chaffed  with  the  monkeys,  coaxed  the 
tigers,  and  bamboozled  the  snakes,  with  a  dexterity  unap- 
proachable. All  the  keepers  knew  him,  he  was  such  a 
loyal  visitor,  and  I  noticed  they  came  up  to  him  in  a 
friendly  way,  with  the  feeling  that  they  had  a  sympathetic 
listener  always  in  Charles  Dickens. 

There  were  certain  books  of  which  Dickens  liked  to 
talk  during  his  walks.    Among  his  especial  favorites  were 


238  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

the  writings  of  Cobbett,  DeQuincey,  the  Lectures  on  Moral 
Philosophy  by  Sydney  Smith,  and  Carlyle's  French  Revo- 
lution. Of  this  latter  Dickens  said  it  was  the  book  of  all 
others  which  he  read  perpetually  and  of  which  he  never 
tired,  —  the  book  which  always  appeared  more  imaginative 
in  proportion  to  the  fresh  imagination  he  brought  to  it,  a 
book  for  inexhaustibleness  to  be  placed  before  every  other 
book.  When  writing  the  "  Tale  of  Two  Cities,"  he  asked 
Carlyle  if  he  might  see  one  of  the  works  to  which  he  re- 
ferred in  his  history ;  whereupon  Carlyle  packed  up  and 
sent  down  to  Gad's  Hill  all  his  reference  volumes,  and 
Dickens  read  them  faithfully.  But  the  more  he  read  the 
more  he  was  astonished  to  find  how  the  facts  had  passed 
through  the  alembic  of  Carlyle's  brain  and  had  come  out 
and  fitted  themselves,  each  as  a  part  of  one  great  whole, 
making  a  compact  result,  indestructible  and  unrivalled; 
and  he  always  found  himself  turning  away  from  the  books 
of  reference,  and  re-reading  with  increased  wonder  this 
marvellous  new  growth.  There  were  certain  books  par- 
ticularly hateful  to  him,  and  of  which  he  never  spoke  ex- 
cept in  terms  of  most  ludicrous  raillery.  Mr.  Barlow,  in 
"  Sandford  and  Merton,"  he  said  was  the  favorite  enemy 
of  his  boyhood  and  his  first  experience  of  a  bore.  He  had 
an  almost  supernatural  hatred  for  Barlow,  "because  he 
was  so  very  instructive,  and  always  hinting  doubts  with 
regard  to  the  veracity  of '  Sindbad  the  Sailor,'  and  had  no 
belief  whatever  in  '  The  Wonderful  Lamp '  or  '  The  En- 
chanted Horse.' '  Dickens  rattling  his  mental  cane  over 
the  head  of  Mr.  Barlow  was  as  much  better  than  any 
play  as  can  be  well  imagined.  He  gloried  in  many  of 
Hood's  poems,  especially  in  that  biting  Ode  to  Bae  Wilson, 
and  he  would  gesticulate  with  a  fine  fervor  the  lines, 

".  .  .  .  the  hypocrites  who  ope  Heaven's  door 
Obsequious  to  the  sinful  man  of  riches,  — 

But  put  the  wicked,  naked,  bare-legged  poor 
In  parish  stocks  instead  of  breec/ies." 


DICKENS.  239 

One  of  his  favorite  books  was  Pepys's  Diary,  the  curious 
discovery  of  the  key  to  which,  and  the  odd  characteristics 
of  its  writer,  were  a  never-failing  source  of  interest  and 
amusement  to  him.  The  vision  of  Pepys  hanging  round 
the  door  of  the  theatre,  hoping  for  an  invitation  to  go  in, 
not  being  able  to  keep  away  in  spite  of  a  promise  he  had 
made  to  himself  that  he  would  spend  no  more  money 
foolishly,  delighted  him.  Speaking  one  day  of  Gray,  the 
author  of  the  Elegy,  he  said  :  "  No  poet  ever  came  walking- 
down  to  posterity  with  so  small  a  book  under  his  arm." 
He  preferred  Smollett  to  Fielding,  putting  "  Peregrine 
Pickle  "  above  "  Tom  Jones."  Of  the  best  novels  by  his 
contemporaries  he  always  spoke  with  warm  commendation, 
and  "  Griffith  Gaunt "  he  thought  a  production  of  very 
high  merit.  He  was  "  hospitable  to  the  thought "  of  all 
writers  who  were  really  in  earnest,  but  at  the  first  exhibi- 
tion of  floundering  or  inexactness  he  became  an  unbeliever. 
Peoj)le  with  dislocated  understandings  he  had  no  toler- 
ance for. 

He  was  passionately  fond  of  the  theatre,  loved  the 
lights  and  music  and  flowers,  and  the  happy  faces  of  the 
audience  ;  he  was  accustomed  to  say  that  his  love  of  the 
theatre  never  failed,  and,  no  matter  how  dull  the  play,  he 
was  always  careful  while  he  sat  in  the  box  to  make  no 
sound  which  could  hurt  the  feelings  of  the  actors,  or  show 
any  lack  of  attention.  His  genuine  enthusiasm  for  Mr. 
Fechter's  acting  was  most  interesting.  He  loved  to  de- 
scribe seeing  him  first,  quite  by  accident,  in  Paris,  having 
strolled  into  a  little  theatre  there  one  night.  "  He  was 
making  love  to  a  woman,"  Dickens  said,  "  and  he  so  ele- 
vated her  as  well  as  himself  by  the  sentiment  in  which 
he  enveloped  her,  that  they  trod  in  a  purer  ether,  and  in 
another  sphere,  quite  lifted  out  of  the  present.  '  By 
heavens  ! '  I  said  to  myself,  '  a  man  who  can  do  this  can 


240  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

do  anything.'  I  never  saw  two  people  more  purely  and 
instantly  elevated  by  the  power  of  love.  The  manner, 
also,"  he  continued,  "  in  which  he  presses  the  hem  of  the 
dress  of  Lucy  in  the  Bride  of  Lammermoor  is  something 
wonderful.  The  man  has  genius  in  him  which  is  unmis- 
takable." 

Life  behind  the  scenes  was  always  a  fascinating  study 
to  Dickens.  "  One  of  the  oddest  sights  a  green-room 
can  present,"  he  said  one  day,  "  is  when  they  are  collect- 
ing children  for  a  pantomime.  For  this  purpose  the 
prompter  calls  together  all  the  women  in  the  ballet,  and 
begins  giving  out  their  names  in  order,  while  they  press 
about  him  eager  for  the  chance  of  increasing  their  poor 
pay  by  the  extra  pittance  their  children  will  receive.  '  Mrs. 
Johnson,  how  many  ? '  '  Two,  sir.'  '  What  ages  ? '  '  Seven 
and  ten.'  '  Mrs.  B.,  how  many  ? '  and  so  on,  until  the  re- 
quired number  is  made  up.  The  people  who  go  upon  the 
stage,  however  poor  their  pay  or  hard  their  lot,  love  it  too 
well  ever  to  adopt  another  vocation  of  their  free-will.  A 
mother  will  frequently  be  in  the  wardrobe,  children  in  the 
pantomime,  elder  sisters  in  the  ballet,  etc." 

Dickens's  habits  as  a  speaker  differed  from  those  of 
most  orators.  He  gave  no  thought  to  the  composition  of 
the  speech  he  was  to  make  till  the  day  before  he  was  to 
deliver  it.  No  matter  whether  the  effort  was  to  be  a  long 
or  a  short  one,  he  never  wrote  down  a  word  of  what  he 
was  going  to  say ;  but  when  the  proper  time  arrived  for 
him  to  consider  his  subject,  he  took  a  walk  into  the 
country  and  the  thing  was  done.  When  he  returned  he 
was  all  ready  for  his  task. 

He  liked  to  talk  about  the  audiences  that  came  to  hear 
him  read,  and  he  gave  the  palm  to  his  Parisian  one,  say- 
ing it  was  the  quickest  to  catch  his  meaning.  Although 
he  said  there  were  many  always  present  in  his  room  in 


DICKENS.  241 


Paris  who  did  not  fully  understand  English,  yet  the 
French  eye  is  so  quick  to  detect  expression  that  it  never 
failed  instantly  to  understand  what  he  meant  by  a  look  or 
an  act.  "  Thus,  for  instance,"  he  said,  "  when  I  was  im- 
personating Steerforth  in  "  David  Copperfield,"  and  gave 
that  peculiar  grip  of  the  hand  to  Emily's  lover,  the  French 
audience  burst  into  cheers  and  rounds  of  applause."  He 
said  with  reference  to  the  preparation  of  his  readings, 
that  it  was  three  months'  hard  labor  to  get  up  one  of  his 
own  stories  for  public  recitation,  and  he  thought  he  had 
greatly  improved  his  presentation  of  the  "  Christmas 
Carol "  while  in  this  country.  He  considered  the  storm 
scene  in  "  David  Copperfield "  one  of  the  most  effective 
of  his  readings.  The  character  of  Jack  Hopkins  in  "  Bob 
Sawyer's  Party"  he  took  great  delight  in  representing, 
and  as  Jack  was  a  prime  favorite  of  mine,  he  brought  him 
forward  whenever  the  occasion  prompted.  He  always 
spoke  of  Hopkins  as  my  particular  friend,  and  he  was 
constantly  quoting  him,  taking  on  the  peculiar  voice  and 
turn  of  the  head  which  he  gave  Jack  in  the  public 
reading. 

It  gave  him  a  natural  pleasure  when  he  heard  quota- 
tions from  his  own  books  introduced  without  effort  into 
conversation.  He  did  not  always  remember,  when  his 
own  words  were  quoted,  that  he  was  himself  the  author 
of  them,  and  appeared  astounded  at  the  memory  of  others 
in  this  regard.  He  said  Mr.  Secretary  Stanton  had  a 
most  extraordinary  knowledge  of  his  books  and  a  power 
of  taking  the  text  up  at  any  point,  which  he  supposed  to 
belong  to  only  one  person,  and  that  person  not  himself. 

It  was  said  of  Garrick  that  he  was  the  chcerfullcst  man 
of  his  age.  This  can  be  as  truly  said  of  Charles  Dickens. 
In  his  presence  there  was  perpetual  sunshine,  and  gloom 
was  banished  as  having  no  sort  of  relationship  with  him. 
No  man  suffered  more  keenly  or  sympathized  more  fully 
11  p 


242  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

than  he  did  with  want  and  misery ;  but  his  motto  was, 
"  Don't  stand  and  cry ;  press  forward  and  help  remove 
the  difficulty."  The  speed  with  which  he  was  accustomed 
to  make  the  deed  follow  his  yet  speedier  sympathy  was 
seen  pleasantly  on  the  day  of  his  visit  to  the  School-ship 
in  Boston  Harbor.  He  said,  previously  to  going  on  board 
that  ship,  nothing  would  tempt  him  to  make  a  speech,  for 
he  should  always  be  obliged  to  do  it  on  similar  occasions, 
if  he  broke  through  his  rule  so  early  in  his  reading  tour. 
But  Judge  Eussell  had  no  sooner  finished  his  simple  talk, 
to  which  the  boys  listened,  as  they  always  do,  with  eager 
faces,  than  Dickens  rose  as  if  he  could  not  help  it,  and 
with  a  few  words  so  magnetized  them  that  they  wore 
their  hearts  in  their  eyes  as  if  they  meant  to  keep  the 
words  forever.  An  enthusiastic  critic  once  said  of  John 
Euskin,  "  that  he  could  discover  the  Apocalypse  in  a 
daisy."  As  noble  a  discovery  may  be  claimed  for  Dick- 
ens. He  found  all  the  fair  humanities  blooming  in  the 
lowliest  hovel.  He  never  put  on  the  good  Samaritan : 
that  character  was  native  to  him.  Once  while  in  this 
country,  on  a  bitter,  freezing  afternoon,  —  night  coming 
down  in  a  drifting  snow-storm,  —  he  was  returning  with 
me  from  a  long  walk  in  the  country.  The  wind  and 
baffling  sleet  were  so  furious  that  the  street  in  which  we 
happened  to  be  fighting  our  way  was  quite  deserted ;  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  see  across  it,  the  air  was  so  thick 
with  the  tempest ;  all  conversation  between  us  had  ceased, 
for  it  was  only  possible  to  breast  the  storm  by  devoting 
our  whole  energies  to  keeping  on  our  feet ;  we  seemed  to 
be  walking  in  a  different  atmosphere  from  any  we  had 
ever  before  encountered.  All  at  once  I  missed  Dickens 
from  my  side.  What  had  become  of  him  ?  Had  he  gone 
down  in  the  drift,  utterly  exhausted,  and  was  the  snow 
burying  him  out  of  sight  ?  Very  soon  the  sound  of  his 
cheery  voice  was  heard  on  the  other  side  of  the  way. 


DICKENS.  243 

With  great  difficulty,  over  the  piled-up  snow,  I  struggled 
across  the  street,  and  there  found  him  lifting  up,  almost 
by  main  force,  a  blind  old  man  who  had  got  bewildered 
by  the  storm,  and  had  fallen  down  unnoticed,  quite  unable 
to  proceed.  Dickens,  a  long  distance  away  from  him, 
with  that  tender,  sensitive,  and  penetrating  vision,  ever 
on  the  alert  for  suffering  in  any  form,  had  rushed  at  once 
to  the  rescue,  comprehending  at  a  glance  the  situation  of 
the  sightless  man.  To  help  him  to  his  feet  and  aid  him 
homeward  in  the  most  natural  and  simple  way  afforded 
Dickens  such  a  pleasure  as  only  the  benevolent  by  in- 
tuition can  understand. 

Throughout  his  life  Dickens  was  continually  receiving 
tributes  from  those  he  had  benefited,  either  by  his  books 
or  by  his  friendship.  There  is  an  odd  and  very  pretty 
story  (vouched  for  here  as  true)  connected  with  the  in- 
fluence he  so  widely  exerted.  In  the  winter  of  1869, 
soon  after  he  came  up  to  London  to  reside  for  a  few 
months,  he  received  a  letter  from  a  man  telling  him  that 
he  had  begun  life  in  the  most  humble  way  possible,  and 
that  he  considered  he  owed  his  subsequent  great  success 
and  such  education  as  he  had  given  himself  entirely  to 
the  encouragement  and  cheering  influence  he  had  derived 
from  Dickens's  books,  of  which  he  had  been  a  constant 
reader  from  his  childhood.  He  had  been  made  a  partner 
in  his  master's  business,  and  when  the  head  of  the  house 
died,  the  other  day,  it  was  found  he  had  left  the  whole  of 
his  large  property  to  this  man.  As  soon  as  he  came 
into  possession  of  this  fortune,  his  mind  turned  to 
Dickens,  wdiom  he  looked  upon  as  his  benefactor  and 
teacher,  and  his  first  desire  was  to  tender  him  some  testi- 
monial of  gratitude  and  veneration.  He  then  begged 
Dickens  to  accept  a  large  sum  of  money.  Dickens 
declined  to  receive  the  money,  but  his  unknown  friend 
sent  him  instead  two    silver  table    ornaments  of   great 


244  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

intrinsic  value  bearing  this  inscription :  "  To  Charles 
Dickens,  from  one  who  has  been  cheered  and  stimulated 
by  his  writings,  and  held  the  author  amongst  his  first 
Remembrances  when  he  became  prosperous."  One  of 
these  silver  ornaments  was  supported  by  three  figures, 
representing  three  seasons.  In  the  original  design  there 
were,  of  course,  four,  but  the  donor  was  so  averse  to 
associating  the  idea  of  Winter  in  any  sense  with  Dickens 
that  he  caused  the  workman  to  alter  the  design  and  leave 
only  the  cheerful  seasons.  No  event  in  the  great  author's 
career  was  ever  more  gratifying  and  pleasant  to  him. 

His  friendly  notes  were  excpiisitely  turned,  and  are 
among  his  most  charming  compositions.  They  abound  in 
felicities  only  like  himself.  In  1860  he  wrote  to  me  while 
I  was  sojourning  in  Italy  :  "  I  should  like  to  have  a  walk 
through  Eome  with  you  this  bright  morning  (for  it  really 
is  bright  in  London),  and  convey  you  over  some  favorite 
ground  of  mine.  I  used  to  go  up  the  street  of  Tombs, 
past  the  tomb  of  Cecilia  Metella,  away  out  upon  the  wild 
campagna,  and  by  the  old  Appian  Eoad  (easily  tracked  out 
among  the  ruins  and  primroses),  to  Albano.  There,  at  a 
very  dirty  inn,  I  used  to  have  a  very  dirty  lunch,  gener- 
ally with  the  family's  dirty  linen  lying  in  a  corner,  and 
inveigle  some  very  dirty  Vetturino  in  sheep-skin  to  take 
me  back  to  Rome." 

In  a  little  note  in  answer  to  one  I  had  written  consult- 
ing him  about  the  purchase  of  some  old  furniture  in  Lon- 
don he  wrote :  "  There  is  a  chair  (without  a  bottom)  at  a 
shop  near  the  office,  which  I  think  would  suit  you.  It 
cannot  stand  of  itself,  but  will  almost  seat  somebody,  if 
you  put  it  in  a  corner,  and  prop  one  leg  up  with  two 
wedges  and  cut  another  leg  off  The  proprietor  asks  £20, 
but  says  he  admires  literature  and  would  take  £18.  He 
is  of  republican  principles  and  I  think  would  take  £17 
19s.  6d.  from  a  cousin;  shall  I  secure  this  prize  ?     It  is 


DICKENS.  245 


very  ugly  and  wormy,  and  it  is  related,  but  without  proof, 
that  on  one  occasion  Washington  declined  to  sit  down 
in  it." 

Here  are  the  last  two  missives  I  ever  received  from  his 
dear,  kind  hand :  — 

5  Hyde  Park  Place,  London,  W.,  Friday,  January  14, 18T0. 

My  dear  Fields  :  We  live  here  (opposite  the  Marble  Arch)  in  a 
charming  house  until  the  1st  of  June,  and  then  return  to  Gad's. 
The  Conservatory  is  completed,  and  is  a  brilliant  success  ;  —  but  an 
expensive  one ! 

I  read  this  afternoon  at  three,  —  a  beastly  proceeding  which  I 
particularly  hate,  —  and  again  this  day  week  at  three.  These  morn- 
ing readings  particularly  disturb  me  at  my  book-work ;  neverthe- 
less I  hope,  please  God,  to  lose  no  way  on  their  account.  An 
evening  reading  once  a  week  is  nothing.  By  the  by,  I  recom- 
menced last  Tuesday  evening  with  the  greatest  brilliancy. 

I  should  be  quite  ashamed  of  not  having  written  to  you  and  my 
dear  Mrs.  Fields  before  now,  if  I  didn't  know  that  you  will  both 
understand  how  occupied  I  am,  and  how  naturally,  when  I  put  my 
papers  away  for  the  day,  I  get  up  and  fly.  I  have  a  large  room  here, 
with  three  fine  windows,  overlooking  the  Park,  —  unsurpassable  for 
airiness  and  cheerfulness. 

You  saw  the  announcement  of  the  death  of  poor  dear  Harness. 
The  circumstances  are  curious.  He  wrote  to  his  old  friend  the 
Dean  of  Battle  saying  he  would  come  to  visit  him  on  that  day  (the 
day  of  his  death).  The  Dean  wrote  back :  "  Come  next  day,  in- 
stead, as  we  are  obliged  to  go  out  to  dinner,  and  you  will  be  alone." 
Harness  told  his  sister  a  little  impatiently  that  he  must  go  on  the 
first-named  day,  —  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  go,  and  must. 
He  had  been  getting  himself  ready  for  dinner,  and  came  to  a  part 
of  the  staircase  whence  two  doors  opened,  —  one,  upon  another 
level  passage ;  one,  upon  a  fl.ght  of  stone  steps.  He  opened  thfe 
wrong  door,  fell  down  the  steps,  injured  himself  very  severely,  and 
died  in  a  few  hours. 

You  will  know  —  /don't  —  what  Fechter's  success  is  in  America 
at  the  time  of  this  present  writing.  In  his  farewell  performances  at 
the  Princess's  he  acted  very  finely.  I  thought  the  three  first  acts 
of  his  Hamlet  very  much  better  than  I  had  ever  thought  them  be- 
fore, —  and  I  always  thought  very  highly  of  them.  We  gave  him  a 
foaming  stirrup  cup  at  Gads  Hill. 


246  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


Forster  (who  lias  been  ill  with  his  bronchitis  again)  thinks  No.  2 
of  the  new  book  (Edwin  Drood)  a  clincher,  —  I  mean  that  word 
(as  his  own  expression)  for  Clincher.  There  is  a  curious  interest 
steadily  working  up  to  No.  5,  which  recuiires  a  great  deal  of  art 
and  self-denial.  I  think  also,  apart  from  character  and  picturesque- 
ness,  that  the  young  people  are  placed  in  a  very  novel  situation. 
So  I  hope  —  at  Nos.  5  and  6  the  story  will  turn  upon  an  interest 
suspended  until  the  end. 

I  can't  believe  it,  and  don't,  and  won't,  but  they  say  Harry's  twenty- 
first  birthday  is  next  Sunday.  I  have  entered  him  at  the  Temple 
just  now ;  and  if  he  don't  get  a  fellowship  at  Trinity  Hall  when 
his  time  comes,  I  shall  be  disappointed,  if  in  the  present  disappointed 
state  of  existence. 

I  hope  you  may  have  met  with  the  little  touch  of  Radicalism  I 
gave  them  at  Birmingham  in  the  words  of  Buckle  ?  With  pride  I 
observe  that  it  makes  the  regular  political  traders,  of  all  sorts,  per- 
fectly mad.  Sich  was  my  intentions,  as  a  grateful  acknowledg- 
ment of  having  been  misrepresented. 

I  think  Mrs. 's  prose  very  admirable,  but  I  don't  believe  it ! 

No,  I  do  not.  My  conviction  is  that  those  Islanders  get  frightfully 
bored  by  the  Islands,  and  wish  they  had  never  set  eyes  upon  them  ! 

Charley  Collins  has  done  a  charming  cover  for  the  monthly  part 
of  the  new  book.  At  the  very  earnest  representations  of  Millais 
(and  after  having  seen  a  great  number  of  his  drawings)  I  am  going 
to  engage  with  a  new  man;  retaining,  of  course,  C.  C.'s  cover 
aforesaid.  K has  made  some  more  capital  portraits,  and  is  al- 
ways improving. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Fields,  if  "  He  "  (made  proud  by  chairs  and  bloated 
by  pictures)  does  not  give  you  my  dear  love,  let  us  conspire  against 
him  when  you  find  him  out,  and  exclude  him  from  all  future  confi- 
dences.    Until  then 

Ever  affectionately  yours  and  his, 

C.  D. 

6  Htde  Park  Place,  London,  W.,  Monday,  April  18, 1870. 
My  dear  Fields  :  I  have  been  hard  at  work   all   clay  until  post 
time,  and  have  only  leisure  to  acknowledge  the  receipt,  the  day  be- 
fore yesterday,  of  your  note  containing  such  good  news  of  Fechter* 
and  to  assure  you  of  my  undiminished  regard  and  affection. 

We  have  been  doing  wonders  with  No.  1  of  Edwin  Drood.     // 
has  very,,  very  far  outstripped  every  one  of  its  predecessors. 
Ever  your  affectionate  friend, 

Charles  Dickens. 


DICKENS.  247 


Bright  colors  were  a  constant  delight  to  him  ;  and  the 
gay  hues  of  flowers  were  those  most  welcome  to  his  eye. 
When  the  rhododendrons  were  in  bloom  in  Oobham  Park, 
the  seat  of  his  friend  and  neighbor,  Lord  Darnley,  he  al- 
ways counted  on  taking  his  guests  there  to  enjoy  the 
magnificent  show.  He  delighted  to  turn  out  for  the  de- 
lectation of  his  Transatlantic  cousins  a  couple  of  postilions 
in  the  old  red  jackets  of  the  old  red  royal  Dover  road, 
making  the  ride  as  much  as  possible  like  a  holiday  drive 
in  England  fifty  years  ago. 

When  in  the  mood  for  humorous  characterization, 
Dickens's  hilarity  was  most  amazing.  To  hear  him  tell  a 
ghost  story  with  a  very  florid  imitation  of  a  very  pallid 
ghost,  or  hear  him  sing  an  old-time  stage  song,  such  as  he 
used  to  enjoy  in  his  youth  at  a  cheap  London  theatre,  to 
see  him  imitate  a  lion  in  a  menagerie-cage,  or  the  clown 
in  a  pantomime  when  he  flops  and  folds  himself  up  like  a 
jack-knife,  or  to  join  with  him  in  some  mirthful  game  of 
his  own  composing,  was  to  become  acquainted  with  one  of 
the  most  delightful  and  original  companions  in  the  world. 

On  one  occasion,  during  a  walk  with  me,  he  chose  to 
run  into  the  wildest  of  vagaries  about  conversation.  The 
ludicrous  vein  he  indulged  in  during  that  two  hours' 
stretch  can  never  be  forgotten.  Anions  other  things,  he 
said  he  had  often  thought  how  restricted  one's  conversation 
must  become  when  one  was  visiting  a  man  who  was  to  be 
hanged  in  half  an  hour.  He  went  on  in  a  most  surprising 
manner  to  imagine  all  sorts  of  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
becoming  interesting  to  the  poor  fellow.  "  Suppose,"  said 
he,  "  it  should  be  a  rainy  morning  while  you  are  making 
the  call,  you  could  not  possibly  indulge  in  the  remark, 
'We  shall  have  fine  weather  to-morrow,  sir,'  for  what 
would  that  be  to  him  ?  For  my  part,  I  think,"  said  he, 
"  I  should  confine  my  observations  to  the  days  of  Julius 
Caesar  or  King  Alfred." 


248  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

At  another  time  when  speaking  of  what  was  constantly 
said  about  him  in  certain  newsj^apers,  he  observed :  "  I 
notice  that  about  once  in  every  seven  years  I  become  the 
victim  of  a  paragraph  disease.  It  breaks  out  in  England, 
travels  to  India  by  the  overland  route,  gets  to  America  per 
Cunard  line,  strikes  the  base  of  the  Eocky  Mountains,  and, 
rebounding  back  to  Europe,  mostly  perishes  on  the  steppes 
of  Kussia  from  inanition  and  extreme  cold."  When  he 
felt  he  was  not  under  observation,  and  that  tomfoolery 
would  not  be  frowned  upon  or  gazed  at  with  astonishmen  \, 
he  gave  himself  up  without  reserve  to  healthy  amusement 
and  strengthening  mirth.  It  was  his  mission  to  make 
people  happy.  Words  of  good  cheer  were  native  to  his 
lips,  and  he  was  always  doing  what  he  could  to  lighten 
the  lot  of  all  who  came  into  his  beautiful  presence.  His 
talk  was  simple,  natural,  and  direct,  never  dropping  into 
circumlocution  nor  elocution.  Now  that  he  is  gone,  who- 
ever lias  known  him  intimately  for  any  considerable  period 
of  time  will  linger  over  his  tender  regard  for,  and  his  en- 
gaging manner  with,  children  ;  his  cheery  "  Good  Day  "  to 
poor  people  he  happened  to  be  passing  in  the  road ;  his 
trustful  and  earnest  "  Please  God,"  when  he  was  promis- 
ing himself  any  special  pleasure,  like  rejoining  an  old 
friend  or  returning  again  to  scenes  he  loved.  At  such 
times  his  voice  had  an  irresistible  pathos  in  it,  and  his 
smile  diffused  a  sensation  like  music.  When  he  came  in- 
to the  presence  of  squalid  or  degraded  persons,  such  as 
one  sometimes  encounters  in  almshouses  or  prisons,  he  had 
such  soothing  words  to  scatter  here  and  there,  that  those 
who  had  been  "  most  hurt  by  the  archers  "  listened  gladly, 
and  loved  him  without  knowing  who  it  was  that  found  it 
in  his  heart  to  speak  so  kindly  to  them. 

Oftentimes  during  long  walks  in  the  streets  and  by-ways 
of  London,  or  through  the  pleasant  Kentish  lanes,  or 
among  the  localities  he  has  rendered  forever  famous  in  his 


DICKENS.  249 


books,  I  have  recalled  the  sweet  words  in  which  Shake- 
speare has  embalmed  one  of  the  characters  in  Love's 
Labor 's  Lost :  — 

"A  merrier  man, 
Within  the  limit  of  becoming  mirth, 
I  never  spent  an  hour's  talk  withal : 
His  eye  begets  occasion  for  his  wit ; 
For  every  object  that  the  one  doth  catch 
The  other  turns  to  a  mirth-moving  jest, 
Which  his  fair  tongue,  conceit's  expositor, 
Delivers  in  such  apt  and  gracious  words 
That  aged  ears  play  truant  at  his  tales, 
And  younger  hearings  are  quite  ravished  ; 
So  sweet  and  voluble  is  his  discourse." 

Twenty  years  ago  Daniel  Webster  said  that  Dickens 
had  already  done  more  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the 
English  poor  than  all  the  statesmen  Great  Britain  had 
sent  into  Parliament.  During  the  unceasing  demands 
upon  his  time  and  thought,  he  found  opportunities  of 
visiting  personally  those  haunts  of  suffering  in  London 
which  needed  the  keen  eye  and  sympathetic  heart  to 
bring  them  before  the  public  for  relief.  Whoever  has  ac- 
companied him,  as  I  have,  on  his  midnight  walks  into  the 
cheap  lodging-houses  provided  for  London's  lowest  poor, 
cannot  have  failed  to  learn  lessons  never  to  be  forgotten. 
Newgate  and  Smithfield  were  lifted  out  of  their  abomina- 
tions by  his  eloquent  pen,  and  many  a  hospital  is  to-day 
all  the  better  charity  for  having  been  visited  and  watched 
by  Charles  Dickens.  To  use  his  own  words,  through  his 
whole  life  he  did  what  he  could  "  to  lighten  the  lot  of 
those  rejected  ones  whom  the  world  has  too  long  forgotten 
and  too  often  misused." 

These  inadequate,  and,  of  necessity,  hastily  written, 

records  must  stand  for  what  they  are  worth  as  personal 

recollections  of  the  great  author  who  has  made  so  many 

millions  happy  by  his  inestimable  genius  and  sympathy. 

His  life  will  no  doubt  be  written  out  in  full  by  some 
11* 


250  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

competent  hand  in  England ;  but  however  numerous  the 
volumes  of  his  biography,  the  half  can  hardly  be  told  of 
the  good  deeds  he  has  accomplished  for  his  fellow-men. 

And  who  could  ever  tell,  if  those  volumes  were  written, 
of  the  subtle  qualities  of  insight  and  sympathy  which 
rendered  him  capable  of  friendship  above  most  men,  — 
which  enabled  him  to  reinstate  its  ideal,  and  made  his 
presence  a  perpetual  joy,  and  separation  from  him  an 
ineffaceable  sorrow  ? 


WORDSWORTH. 


"  His  mind  is,  as  it  were,  coeval  with  the  primary  forms  of  things  ;  his 
imagination  holds  immediately  from  nature,  and  ' owes  no  allegiance''  bul 
to  the  elements.'1  .  ...  He  sees  all  things  in  himself'  —  hazlitt. 


■■  ■ 

■ 


^> 


V. 

WORDSWORTH. 

THAT  portrait  looking  down  so  calmly  from  the  wall 
is  an  original  picture  of  the  poet  Wordsworth,  drawn 
in  crayon  a  few  years  before  he  died.  He  went  up  to 
London  on  purpose  to  sit  for  it,  at  the  request  of  Moxon, 
his  publisher,  and  his  friends  in  England  always  consid- 
ered it  a  perfect  likeness  of  the  poet.  After  the  head  was 
engraved,  the  artist's  family  disposed  of  the  drawing,  and 
through  the  watchful  kindness  of  my  dear  old  friend, 
Mary  Russell  Mitford,  the  portrait  came  across  the  Atlan- 
tic to  this  house.  Miss  Mitford  said  America  ought  to 
have  on  view  such  a  perfect  representation  of  the  great 
poet,  and  she  used  all  her  successful  influence  in  my  be- 
half. So  there  the  picture  hangs  for  anybody's  inspection 
at  any  hour  of  the  day. 

I  once  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  small  market-town  of 
Hawkshead,  in  the  valley  of  Esthwaite,  where  Words- 
worth went  to  school  in  his  ninth  year.  The  thoughtful 
boy  was  lodged  in  the  house  of  Dame  Anne  Tyson  in 
1788  ;  and  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  a  lady  in  the 
village  street  who  conducted  me  at  once  to  the  room 
which  the  lad  occupied  while  he  was  a  scholar  under  the 
Rev.  William  Taylor,  whom  he  loved  and  venerated  so 
much.  I  went  into  the  chamber  which  he  afterwards 
described  in  The  Prelude,  where  he 

"  Had  lain  awake  on  summer  nights  to  watch 
The  moon  in  splendor  couched  among  the  leaves 
Of  a  tall  ash,  that  near  our  cottage  stood  "  ; 


254  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  I  visited  many  of  the  beautiful  spots  which  tradition 
points  out  as  the  favorite  haunts  of  his  childhood. 

It  was  true  Lake-country  weather  when  I  knocked  at 
Wordsworth's  cottage  door,  three  years  before  he  died, 
and  found  myself  shaking  hands  with  the  poet  at  the 
threshold.  His  daughter  Dora  had  been  dead  only  a  few 
months,  and  the  sorrow  that  had  so  recently  fallen  upon 
the  house  was  still  dominant  there.  I  thought  there  was 
something  prophet-like  in  the  tones  of  his  voice,  as  well 
as  in  his  whole  appearance,  and  there  was  a  noble  tran- 
quillity about  him  that  almost  awed  one,  at  first,  into 
silence.  As  the  day  was  cold  and  wet,  he  proposed  we 
should  sit  down  together  in  the  only  room  in  the  house 
where  there  was  a  fire,  and  he  led  the  way  to  what  seemed 
a  common  sitting  or  dining  room.  It  was  a  plain  apart- 
ment, the  rafters  visible,  and  no  attempt  at  decoration 
noticeable.  Mrs.  Wordsworth  sat  knitting  at  the  fireside, 
and  she  rose  with  a  sweet  expression  of  courtesy  and 
welcome  as  we  entered  the  apartment.  As  I  had  just  left 
Paris,  which  was  in  a  state  of  commotion,  Wordsworth 
was  eager  in  his  inquiries  about  the  state  of  things  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Channel.  As  our  talk  ran  in  the  direc- 
tion of  French  revolutions,  he  soon  became  eloquent  and 
vehement,  as  one  can  easily  imagine,  on  such  a  theme. 
There  was  a  deep  and  solemn  meaning  in  all  he  had  to 
say  about  France,  which  I  recall  now  with  added  interest. 
The  subject  deeply  moved  him,  of  course,  and  he  sat 
looking  into  the  fire,  discoursing  in  a  low  monotone, 
sometimes  quite  forgetful  that  he  was  not  alone  and  so- 
liloquizing. I  noticed  that  Mrs.  Wordsworth  listened 
as  if  she  were  hearing  him  speak  for  the  first  time  in  her 
life,  and  the  work  on  which  she  was  engaged  lay  idle  in 
her  lap,  while  she  watched  intently  every  movement  of 
her  husband's  face.  I  also  was  absorbed  in  the  man  and 
in  his  speech.     I  thought  of  the  long  years  he  had  lived 


WORDSWORTH.  255 


in  communion  with  nature  in  that  lonely  but  lovely  re- 
gion. The  story  of  his  life  was  familiar  to  me,  and  I  sat 
as  if  under  the  influence  of  a  spell.  Soon  he  turned  and 
plied  me  with  questions  about  the  prominent  men  in 
Paris  whom  I  had  recently  seen  and  heard  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies.  "  How  did  Guizot  bear  himself  ?  What 
part  was  De  Tocqueville  taking  in  the  fray  ?  Had  I 
noticed  George  Lafayette  especially  ?  "  America  did  not 
seem  to  concern  him  much,  and  I  waited  for  him  to  in- 
troduce the  subject,  if  he  chose  to  do  so.  He  seemed 
pleased  that  a  youth  from  a  far-away  country  should  find 
his  way  to  Rydal  cottage  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of  an 
old  poet. 

By  and  by  we  fell  into  talk  about  those  who  had  been 
his  friends  and  neighbors  among  the  hills  in  former  years. 
'•  And  so,"  he  said,  "  you  read  Charles  Lamb  in  America  ?" 
"  Yes,"  I  replied,  "  and  love  him  too."  "  Do  you  hear  that, 
Mary  ? "  he  eagerly  inquired,  turning  round  to  Mrs. 
Wordsworth.  "  Yes,  William,  and  no  wonder,  for  he  was 
one  to  be  loved  everywhere,"  she  quickly  answered.  Then 
we  spoke  of  Hazlitt,  whom  he  ranked  very  high  as  a 
prose-writer;  and  when  I  quoted  a  fine  passage  from 
Hazlitt's  essay  on  Jeremy  Taylor,  he  seemed  pleased  at 
my  remembrance  of  it. 

He  asked  about  Inman,  the  American  artist,  who  had 
painted  his  portrait,  having  been  sent  on  a  special  mission 
to  Rydal  by  Professor  Henry  Reed  of  Philadelphia,  to 
procure  the  likeness.  The  painter's  daughter,  who  ac- 
companied her  father,  made  a  marked  impression  on 
Wordsworth,  and  both  he  and  his  wife  joined  in  the 
question,  "Are  all  the  girls  in  America  as  pretty  as  she?" 
I  thought  it  an  honor  Mary  Inman  might  well  be  proud 
of  to  be  so  complimented  by  the  old  bard.  In  speaking 
of  Henry  Reed,  his  manner  was  affectionate  and  tender. 

Now  and  then  I  stole  a  glance  at  the  gentle  lady,  the 


256  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

poet's  wife,  as  she  sat  knitting  silently  by  the  fireside. 
This,  then,  was  the  Mary  whom  in  1802  he  had  brought 
home  to  be  his  loving  companion  through  so  many  years. 
I  could  not  help  remembering  too,  as  we  all  sat  there 
together,  that  when  children  they  had  "  practised  reading 
and  spelling  under  the  same  old  dame  at  Penrith,"  and 
that  they  had  always  been  lovers.  There  sat  the  woman, 
now  gray-haired  and  bent,  to  whom  the  poet  had  ad- 
dressed those  undying  poems,  "  She  was  a  phantom  of 
delight,"  "  Let  other  bards  of  angels  sing,"  "  Yes,  thou  art 
fair,"  and  "  0,  dearer  far  than  life  and  light  are  dear."  I 
recalled,  too,  the  "  Lines  written  after  Thirty-six  Years 
of  Wedded  Life,"  commemorating  her  whose 

"  Mom  into  noon  did  pass,  noon  into  eve, 
And  the  old  day  was  welcome  as  the  young, 
As  welcome,  and  as  beautiful,  —  in  sooth 
More  beautiful,  as  being  a  thing  more  holy." 

When  she  raised  her  eyes  to  his,  which  I  noticed  she  did 
frequently,  they  seemed  overflowing  with  tenderness. 

When  I  rose  to  go,  for  I  felt  that  I  must  not  intrude 
longer  on  one  for  whom  I  had  such  reverence,  Words- 
worth said,  "  I  must  show  you  my  library,  and  some  trib- 
utes that  have  been  sent  to  me  from  the  friends  of  my 
verse."  His  son  John  now  came  in,  and  we  all  proceeded 
to  a  large  room  in  front  of  the  house,  containing  his  books. 
Seeine:  that  I  had  an  interest  in  such  things,  he  seemed 
to  take  a  real  pleasure  in  showing  me  the  presentation 
copies  of  works  by  distinguished  authors.  We  read  to- 
gether, from  many  a  well-worn  old  volume,  notes  in  the 
handwriting  of  Coleridge  and  Charles  Lamb.  I  thousrht 
he  did  not  praise  easily  those  whose  names  are  indissolu- 
bly  connected  with  his  own  in  the  history  cf  literature. 
It  was  languid  praise,  at  least,  and  I  observed  lie  hesi- 
tated for  mild  terms  which  he  could  apply  to  names 
almost  as  great  as  his  own.     I  believe  a  duplicate  of  the 


WORDSWORTH.  257 


portrait  which  Inman  had  painted  for  Eeed  hung  in  the 
room  ;  at  any  rate  a  picture  of  himself  was  there,  and  he 
seemed  to  regard  it  with  veneration  as  we  stood  before  it. 
As  we  moved  about  the  apartment,  Mrs.  Wordsworth  qui- 
etly followed  us,  and  listened  as  eagerly  as  I  did  to  every- 
thing her  husband  had  to  say.  Her  spare  little  figure 
flitted  about  noiselessly,  pausing  as  we  paused,  and  always 
walking  slowly  behind  us  as  we  went  from  object  to  ob- 
ject in  the  room.  John  Wordsworth,  too,  seemed  deeply 
interested  to  watch  and  listen  to  his  father.  "  And  now," 
said  Wordsworth,  "  I  must  show  you  one  of  my  latest 
presents."  Leading  us  up  to  a  corner  of  the  room,  we  all 
stood  before  a  beautiful  statuette  which  a  young  sculptor 
had  just  sent  to  him,  illustrating  a  passage  in  "The  Ex- 
cursion." Turning  to  me,  Wordsworth  asked,  "  Do  you 
know  the  meaning  of  this  figure  ? "  I  saw  at  a  glance 
that  it  was 

"  A  curious  child,  who  dwelt  upon  a  tract 
Of  inland  ground,  applying  to  his  ear 
The  convolutions  of  a  smooth-lipped  shell, " 

and  I  quoted  th  e  lines.  My  recollection  of  the  words  pleased 
the  old  man ;  and  as  we  stood  there  in  front  of  the  figure 
he  began  to  recite  the  whole  passage  from  "  The  Excur- 
sion," and  it  sounded  very  grand  from  the  poet's  own 
lips.  He  repeated  some  fifty  lines,  and  I  could  not  help 
thinking  afterwards,  when  I  came  to  hear  Tennyson  read 
his  own  poetry,  that  the  younger  Laureate  had  caught 
something  of  the  strange,  mysterious  tone  of  the  elder 
bard.  It  was  a  sort  of  chant,  deep  and  earnest,  which 
conveyed  the  impression  that  the  reciter  had  the  highest 
opinion  of  the  poetry. 

Although  it  was  raining  still,  WordswTorth  proposed  to 
show  me  Lady  Fleming's  grounds,  and  some  other  spots 
of  interest  near  his  cottage.  Our  walk  was  a  wet  one ; 
but  as  he  did  not  seem  incommoded  by  it,  I  was  only  too 

Q 


258  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

glad  to  hold  the  umbrella  over  his  venerable  head.  As 
we  went  on,  he  added  now  and  then  a  sonnet  to  the  scen- 
ery, telling  me  precisely  the  circumstances  under  which 
it  had  been  composed.  It  is  many  years  since  my  mem- 
orable walk  with  the  author  of  "  The  Excursion,"  but 
can  call  up  his  figure  and  the  very  tones  of  his  voice  so 
vividly  that  I  enjoy  my  interview  over  again  any  time  I 
choose.  He  was  then  nearly  eighty,  but  he  seemed  hale 
and  quite  as  able  to  walk  up  and  down  the  hills  as  ever. 
He  always  led  back  the  conversation  that  day  to  his  own 
writings,  and  it  seemed  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  for  him  to  do  so.  All  his  most  celebrated  poems 
seemed  to  live  in  his  memory,  and  it  was  easy  to  start 
him  off  by  quoting  the  first  line  of  any  of  his  pieces. 
Speaking  of  the  vastness  of  London,  he  quoted  the  whole 
of  his  sonnet  describing  the  great  city,  as  seen  in  the 
morning  from  Westminster  Bridge.  When  I  parted  with 
him  at  the  foot  of  Iiydal  Hill,  he  gave  me  messages  to 
Rogers  and  other  friends  of  his  whom  I  was  to  see  in 
London.  As  we  were  shaking  hands  I  said,  "  How  glad 
your  many  readers  in  America  would  be  to  see  you  on  our 
side  of  the  water  ! "  "  Ah,"  he  replied,  "  I  shall  never  see 
your  country,  —  that  is  impossible  now  ;  but "  (laying  his 
hand  on  his  son's  shoulder)  "  John  shall  go,  please  God, 
some  day."  I  watched  the  aged  man  as  he  went  slowly 
up  the  hill,  and  saw  him  disappear  through  the  little  gate 
that  led  to  his  cottage  door.  The  ode  on  "  Intimations  of 
Immortality  "  kept  sounding  in  my  brain  as  I  came  down 
the  road,  long  after  he  had  left  me. 

Since  I  sat,  a  little  child,  in  "  a  woman's  school,"  Words- 
worth's poems  had  been  familiar  to  me.  Here  is  my 
first  school-book,  with  a  name  written  on  the  cover  by 
dear  old  "  Marm  Sloper,"  setting  forth  that  the  owner 
thereof  is  "  aged  5."  As  I  went  musing  along  in  West- 
moreland that  rainy  morning,  so  many  years  ago,  little 


WORDSWORTH.  259 


figures  seemed  to  accompany  me,  and  childish  voices  filled 
the  air  as  I  trudged  through  the  wet  grass.  My  small 
ghostly  companions  seemed  to  carry  in  their  little  hands 
quaint-looking  dog's-eared  books,  some  of  them  covered 
with  cloth  of  various  colors.  None  of  these  phantom 
children  looked  to  be  over  six  years  old,  and  all  were 
bareheaded,  and  some  of  the  girls  wore  old-fashioned 
pinafores.  They  were  the  schoolmates  of  my  childhood, 
and  many  of  them  must  have  come  out  of  their  graves 
to  run  by  my  side  that  morning  in  Rydal.     I  had  not 

thought  of  them  for  years.     Little  Emily  K read 

from  her  book  with  a  chirping  lisp :  — 

"0,  what 's  the  matter  ?  what 's  the  matter  ? 
What  is  't  that  ails  young  Harry  Gill  ? " 

Mary  B began  :  — 

" Oft  I  had  heard  of  Lucy  Grey"  ; 

Nancy  C piped  up  :  — 

"  '  How  many  are  you,  then,'  said  1, 
'  If  there  are  two  in  heaven  ? ' 
The  little  maiden  did  reply, 
'  0  master  !  we  are  seven.'  " 

Among  the  group  I  seemed  to  recognize  poor  pale  little 

Charley  F ,  who  they  told  me  years  ago  was  laid  in 

St.  John's  Churchyard  after  they  took  him  out  of  the 
pond,  near  the  mill-stream,  that  terrible  Saturday  after- 
noon.   He  too  read  from  his  well-worn,  green-baize-covered 

book, 

"The  dew  was  falling  fast,  the  stars  began  to  blink." 

Other  white-headed  little  urchins  trotted  along  very  near 
me  all  the  way,  and  kept  saying  over  and  over  their 
"  spirit  ditties  of  no  tone  "  till  I  reached  the  village  inn, 
and  sat  down  as  if  in  a  dream  of  long-past  years. 

Two  years  ago  I  stood  by  Wordsworth's  grave  in  the 


260  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

churchyard  at  Grasmere,  and  my  companion  wove  a 
chaplet  of  flowers  and  placed  it  on  the  headstone.  After- 
wards we  went  into  the  old  church  and  sat  down  in  the 
poet's  pew.  "  They  are  all  dead  and  gone  now,"  sighed 
the  gray-headed  sexton ;  "but  I  can  remember  when  the 
seats  used  to  be  filled  by  the  family  from  Kydal  Mount. 
Now  they  are  all  outside  there  in  yon  grass." 


MISS   MITFORD. 


"  I  care  not,  Fortune,  -what  you  me  deny : 
You  cannot  rob  me  of  free  Nature's  grace  ; 
You  cannot  shut  the  windows  of  the  sky, 
Through  which  Aurora  shows  her  brightening  face ; 
You  cannot  bar  my  constant  feet  to  trace 
The  woods  and  lawns,  by  living  streams  at  eve : 
Let  health  my  nerves  and  finer  fibres  brace, 
And  I  their  toys  to  the  great  children  leave  : 
Of  fancy,  reason,  virtue,  naught  can  me  bereave." 

THOMSON. 


7a        /y<  t  /. 


VI. 

MISS    MITFORD. 

THAT  portrait  hanging  near  Wordsworth's  is  next  to 
seeing  Mary  Russell  Mitford  herself  as  I  first  saw 
her,  twenty-three  years  ago,  in  her  geranium-planted  cot- 
tage at  Three-Mile  Cross.  She  sat  to  John  Lucas  for  the 
picture  in  her  serene  old  age,  and  the  likeness  is  faultless. 
She  had  proposed  to  herself  to  leave  the  portrait,  as  it 
was  her  own  property,  to  me  in  her  will ;  but  as  I  hap- 
pened to  be  in  England  during  the  latter  part  of  her  life, 
she  altered  her  determination,  and  gave  it  to  me  from  her 
own  hands. 

Sydney  Smith  said  of  a  certain  quarrelsome  person, 
that  his  very  face  was  a  breach  of  the  peace.  The  face 
of  that  portrait  opposite  to  us  is  a  very  different  one  from 
Sydney's  fighter.  Everything  that  belongs  to  the  beauty 
of  old  age  one  will  find  recorded  in  that  charming  coun- 
tenance. Serene  cheerfulness  most  abounds,  and  that  is  a 
quality  as  rare  as  it  is  commendable.  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  dress  of  Miss  Mitford  in  the  picture  before  us 
is  quaint  and  somewhat  antiquated  even  for  the  time 
when  it  was  painted,  but  a  pleasant  face  is  never  out 
of  fashion. 

An  observer  of  how  old  age  is  neglected  in  America 
said  to  me  the  other  day,  "  It  seems  an  impertinence  to  be 
alive  after  sixty  on  this  side  of  the  globe  " ;  and  I  have 
often  thought  how  much  we  lose  by  not  cultivating  fine 
old-fashioned  ladies  and  gentlemen.     Our  aged  relatives 


264  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  friends  seem  to  be  tucked  away,  nowadays,  into  neg- 
lected corners,  as  though  it  were  the  correct  thing  to  give 
them  a  long  preparation  for  still  narrower  quarters.  For 
my  own  part,  comely  and  debonair  old  age  is  most  attrac- 
tive ;  and  when  I  see  the  "  thick  silver- white  hair  lying 
on  a  serious  and  weather-worn  face,  like  moonlight  on  a 
stout  old  tower,"  I  have  a  strong  tendency  to  lift  my  hat, 
whether  I  know  the  person  or  not. 

"  No  spring  nor  summer  beauty  hath  such  grace 
As  I  have  seen  in  an  autumnal  face." 

It  was  a  fortunate  hour  for  me  when  kind-hearted  John 
Kenyon  said,  as  I  was  leaving  his  hospitable  door  in  Lon- 
don one  summer  midnight  in  1847,  "You  must  know  my 
friend,  Miss  Mitforcl.  She  lives  directly  on  the  line  of 
your  route  to  Oxford,  and  you  must  call  with  my  card 
and  make  her  acquaintance."  I  had  lately  been  talking 
with  Wordsworth  and  Christopher  North  and  old  Samuel 
Eogers,  but  my  hunger  at  that  time  to  stand  face  to  face 
with  the  distinguished  persons  in  English  literature  was 
not  satisfied.  So  it  was  during  my  first  "  tourification  " 
in  England  that  I  came  to  know  Miss  Mitford.  The  day 
selected  for  my  call  at  her  cottage  door  happened  to  be  a 
perfect  one  on  which  to  begin  an  acquaintance  with  the 
lady  of  "  Our  Village."  She  was  then  living  at  Three- 
Mile  Cross,  having  removed  there  from  Bertram  House  in 
1820.  The  cottage  where  I  found  her  was  situated  on 
the  high  road  between  Basingstoke  and  Reading ;  and  the 
village  street  on  which  she  was  then  living  contained  the 
public-house  and  several  small  shops  near  by.  There  was 
also  close  at  hand  the  village  pond  full  of  ducks  and 
geese,  and  I  noticed  several  young  rogues  on  their  way  to 
school  were  occupied  in  worrying  their  feathered  friends. 
The  windows  of  tlie  cottage  were  filled  with  flowers,  and 
cowslips  and  violets  were  plentifully  scattered  about  the 
little  garden.     Miss  Mitford  liked  to  have  one  dog,  at 


MISS  MITFORD.  265 


least,  at  her  heels,  and  this  day  her  pet  seemed  to  be  con- 
stantly under  foot.  I  remember  the  room  into  which  I 
was  shown  was  sanded,  and  a  quaint  old  clock  behind  the 
door  was  marking  off  the  hour  in  small  but  very  loud 
pieces.  The  cheerful  old  lady  called  to  me  from  the  head 
of  the  stairs  to  come  up  into  her  sitting-room.  I  sat  down 
by  the  open  window  to  converse  with  her,  and  it  was 
pleasant  to  see  how  the  village  children,  as  they  went  by, 
stopped  to  bow  and  curtsey.  One  curly-headed  urchin 
made  bold  to  take  off  his  well-worn  cap,  and  wait  to  be 
recognized  as  "  little  Johnny  "  "  No  great  scholar,"  said 
the  kind-hearted  old  lady  to  me,  "  but  a  sad  rogue  among 
our  flock  of  geese.  Only  yesterday  the  young  marauder 
was  detected  by  my  maid  with  a  plump  gosling  stuffed 
half-way  into  his  pocket ! "  While  she  was  thus  discours- 
ing of  Johnny's  peccadilloes,  the  little  fellow  looked  up 
with  a  knowing  expression,  and  very  soon  caught  in  his 
cap  a  gingerbread  dog,  which  the  old  lady  threw  to  him 
from  the  window.  "  I  wish  he  loved  his  book  as  well  as 
he  relishes  sweetcake,"  sighed  she,  as  the  boy  kicked  up 
his  heels  and  disappeared  down  the  lane. 

Her  conversation  that  afternoon,  full  of  anecdote,  ran  on 
in  a  perpetual  flow  of  good-humor,  and  I  was  shocked,  on 
looking  at  my  watch,  to  find  I  had  stayed  so  long,  and  had 
barely  time  to  reach  the  railway-station  in  season  to  arrive 
at  Oxford  that  night.  We  parted  with  the  mutual  deter- 
mination and  understanding  to  keep  our  friendship  warm 
by  correspondence,  and  I  promised  never  to  come  to  Eng- 
land again  without  finding  my  way  to  Three-Mile  Cross. 

During  the  conversation  that  day,  Miss  Mitford  had 

many  inquiries  to  make  concerning  her  American  friends, 

Miss  Catherine  Sedgwick,  Daniel  Webster,  and  Dr.  Chan- 

ning.     Her  voice  had  a  peculiar  ringing  sweetness  in  it, 

rippling  out  sometimes  like  a  beautiful  chime  of  silver 

bells ;  and  when  she  told  a  comic  story,  hitting  off  some 
12 


266  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 


one  of  her  acquaintances,  she  joined  in  with  the  laugh  at 
the  end  with  great  heartiness  and  naivete.  When  listen- 
ing to  anything  that  interested  her,  she  had  a  way  of  com- 
ing into  the  narrative  with  "  Dear  me,  dear  me,  dear  me," 
three  times  repeated,  which  it  was  very  pleasant  to  hear. 

From  that  summer  day  our  friendship  continued,  and 
during  other  visits  to  England  I  saw  her  frequently,  driv- 
ing about  the  country  with  her  in  her  pony-chaise,  and 
spending  many  happy  hours  in  the  new  cottage  which  she 
afterwards  occupied  at  Swallowfield.  Her  health  had 
broken  down  years  before,  from  too  constant  attendance 
on  her  invalid  parents,  and  she  was  never  certain  of  a  well 
day.  When  her  father  died,  in  1842,  shamefully  in  debt 
(for  he  had  squandered  two  fortunes  not  exactly  his  own, 
and  was  always  one  of  the  most  improvident  of  men,  be- 
longing to  that  class  of  impecunious  individuals  who  seem 
to  have  been  born  insolvent),  she  said,  "  Everybody  shall 
be  paid,  if  I  sell  the  gown  off  my  back  or  pledge  my  little 
pension."  And  putting  her  shoulder  to  the  domestic 
wheel,  she  never  flagged  for  an  instant,  or  gave  way  to 
despondency. 

She  was  always  cheerful,  and  her  talk  is  delightful  to 
remember.  From  girlhood  she  had  known  and  had  been 
intimate  with  most  of  the  prominent  writers  of  her  time, 
and  her  observations  and  reminiscences  were  so  shrewd 
and  pertinent  that  I  have  scarcely  known  her  equal. 

Carlyle  tells  us  "  nothing  so  lifts  a  man  from  all  his 
mean  imprisonments,  were  it  but  for  moments,  as  true  ad- 
miration" ;  and  Miss  Mitford  admired  to  such  an  extent  that 
she  must  have  been  lifted  in  this  way  nearly  all  her  lifetime. 
Indeed  she  erred,  if  she  erred  at  all,  on  this  side,  and  over- 
praised and  over-admired  everything  and  everybody  whom 
she  regarded.  When  she  spoke  of  Beranger  or  Dumas  or 
Hazlitt  or  Holmes,  she  exhausted  every  term  of  worship 
and  panegyric.      Louis  Napoleon  was  one  of  her  most 


MISS  MITFORD.  267 


potent  crazes,  and  I  fully  believe,  if  she  had  been  alive 
during  the  days  of  his  downfall,  she  would  have  died  of 
grief.  When  she  talked  of  Munden  and  Bannister  and 
Fawcett  and  Emery,  those  delightful  old  actors  for  whom 
she  had  had  such  an  exquisite  relish,  she  said  they  had 
made  comedy  to  her  a  living  art  full  of  laughter  and 
tears.  How  often  have  I  heard  her  describe  John  Kemble, 
Mrs.  Siddons,  Miss  O'Neil,  and  Edmund  Kean,  as  they 
were  wont  to  electrify  the  town  in  her  girlhood !  With 
what  gusto  she  reproduced  Elliston,  who  was  one  of  her 
prime  favorites,  and  tried  to  make  me,  through  her  repre- 
sentation of  him,  feel  what  a  spirit  there  was  in  the  man. 
Although  she  had  been  prostrated  by  the  hard  work  and 
increasing  anxieties  of  forty  years  of  authorship,  when  I 
saw  her  she  was  as  fresh  and  independent  as  a  skylark. 
She  was  a  good  hater  as  well  as  a  good  praiser,  and  she 
left  nothing  worth  saving  in  an  obnoxious  reputation. 

I  well  remember,  one  autumn  evening,  when  half  a 
dozen  friends  were  sitting  in  her  library  after  dinner, 
talking  with  her  of  Tom  Taylor's  Life  of  Hay  don,  then 
lately  published,  how  graphically  she  described  to  us  the 
eccentric  painter,  whose  genius  she  was  among  the  fore- 
most to  recognize.  The  flavor  of  her  discourse  I  cannot 
reproduce ;  but  I  was  too  much  interested  in  what  she 
was  saying  to  forget  the  main  incidents  she  drew  for  our 
edification,  during  those  pleasant  hours  now  far  away 
in  the  past. 

"  I  am  a  terrible  forgetter  of  dates,"  she  used  to  say, 
when  any  one  asked  her  of  the  time  ivhen ;  but  for  the 
manner  how  she  was  never  at  a  loss.  "  Poor  Haydon ! " 
she  began.  "  He  was  an  old  friend  of  mine,  and  I  am  in- 
debted to  Sir  William  Elford,  one  of  my  dear  father's 
correspondents  during  my  girlhood,  for  a  suggestion  which 
sent  me  to  look  at  a  picture  then  on  exhibition  in  Lon- 
don, and  thus  was  brought  about  my  knowledge  of  the 


268  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


painter's  existence.  He,  Sir  William,  had  taken  a  fancy 
to  me,  and  I  became  his  child-correspondent.  Few  things 
contribute  more  to  that  indirect  after-education,  which  is 
worth  all  the  formal  lessons  of  the  school-room  a  thou- 
sand times  told,  than  such  good-humored  condescension 
from  a  clever  man  of  the  world  to  a  girl  almost  young 
enough  to  be  his  granddaughter.  I  owe  much  to  that 
correspondence,  and,  amongst  other  debts,  the  acquain- 
tance of  Haydon.  Sir  Wi]liam's  own  letters  were  most 
charming,  —  full  of  old-fashioned  courtesy,  of  quaint 
humor,  and  of  pleasant  and  genial  criticism  on  literature 
and  on  art.  An  amateur-painter  himself,  painting  in- 
terested him  particularly,  and  he  often  spoke  much  and 
warmly  of  the  young  man  from  Plymouth,  whose  picture 
of  the  '  Judgment  of  Solomon '  was  then  on  exhibition  in 
London.  '  You  must  see  it,'  said  he,  '  even  if  you  come 
to  town  on  purpose.'  "  —  The  reader  of  Haydon's  Life  will 
remember  that  Sir  William  Elford,  in  conjunction  with  a 
Plymouth  banker  named  Tingecombe,  ultimately  piir- 
chased  the  picture.  The  poor  artist  was  overwhelmed 
with  astonishment  and  joy  when  he  walked  into  the  ex- 
hibition-room and  read  the  label,  "  Sold,"  which  had  been 
attached  to  his  picture  that  morning  before  he  arrived. 
"  My  first  impulse,"  he  says  in  his  Autobiography,  "  was 
gratitude  to  God." 

"  It  so  happened,"  continued  Miss  Mitford,  "  that  I 
merely  passed  through  London  that  season,  and,  being 
detained  by  some  of  the  thousand  and  one  nothings  which 
are  so  apt  to  detain  women  in  the  great  city,  I  arrived  at 
the  exhibition,  in  company  with  a  still  younger  friend,  so 
near  the  period  of  closing,  that  more  punctual  visitors 
were  moving  out,  and  the  doorkeeper  actually  turned  us 
and  our  money  back.  I  persisted,  however,  assuring  him 
that  I  only  wished  to  look  at  one  picture,  and  promising 
not  to  detain  him  long.     Whether  my  entreaties  would 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  269 

have  carried  the  point  or  not,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  half  a 
crown  did  ;  so  we  stood  admiringly  before  the  '  Judgment 
of  Solomon.'  I  am  no  great  judge  of  painting;  but  that 
picture  impressed  me  then,  as  it  does  now,  as  excellent  in 
composition;  in  color,  and  in  that  great  quality  of  telling 
a  story  which  appeals  at  once  to  every  mind.  Our  de- 
light was  sincerely  felt,  and  most  enthusiastically  ex- 
pressed, as  we  kept  gazing  at  the  picture,  and  seemed, 
unaccountably  to  us  at  first,  to  give  much  pleasure  to  the 
only  gentleman  who  had  remained  in  the  room,  —  a  young 
and  very  distinguished-looking  person,  who  had  watched 
with  evident  amusement  our  negotiation  with  the  door- 
keeper. Beyond  indicating  the  best  position  to  look  at 
the  picture,  he  had  no  conversation  with  us  ;  but  I  soon 
surmised  that  we  were  seeing  the  painter,  as  well  as  his 
painting ;  and  when,  two  or  three  years  afterwards,  a 
friend  took  me  by  appointment  to  view  the  '  Entry  into 
Jerusalem,'  Haydon's  next  great  picture,  then  near  its 
completion,  I  found  I  had  not  been  mistaken. 

"  Haydon  was,  at  that  period,  a  remarkable  person  to 
look  at  and  listen  to.  Perhaps  your  American  word 
bright  expresses  better  than  any  other  his  appearance  and 
manner.  His  figure,  short,  slight,  elastic,  and  vigorous, 
looked  still  more  light  and  youthful  from  the  little  sailor's- 
jacket  and  snowy  trousers  which  formed  his  painting 
costume.  His  complexion  was  clear  and  healthful.  His 
forehead,  broad  and  high,  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
lower  part  of  his  face,  gave  an  unmistakable  character  of 
intellect  to  the  finely  placed  head.  Indeed,  he  liked  te 
observe  that  the  gods  of  the  Greek  sculptors  owed  much 
of  their  elevation  to  being  similarly  out  of  drawing ! 
The  lower  features  were  terse,  succinct,  and  powerful,  — 
from  the  bold,  decided  jaw,  to  the  large,  firm,  ugly,  good- 
humored  mouth.  His  very  spectacles  aided  the  general 
expression ;  they  had  a  look  of  the  man.     But  how  shall 


270  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

I  attempt  to  tell  you  of  his  brilliant  conversation,  of  his 
rapid,  energetic  manner,  of  his  quick  turns  of  thought,  as 
he  flew  on  from  topic  to  topic,  dashing  his  brush  here  and 
there  upon  the  canvas?  Slow  and  quiet  persons  were  a 
good  deal  startled  by  this  suddenness  and  mobility.  He 
left  such  people  far  behind,  mentally  and  bodily.  But  his 
talk  was  so  rich  and  varied,  so  earnest  and  glowing,  his 
anecdotes  so  racy,  his  perception  of  character  so  shrewd, 
and  the  whole  tone  so  spontaneous  and  natural,  that  the 
want  of  repose  was  rather  recalled  afterwards  than  felt  at 
the  time.  The  alloy  to  this  charm  was  a  slight  coarseness 
of  voice  and  accent,  which  contrasted  somewhat  strangely 
with  his  constant  courtesy  and  high  breeding.  Perhaps 
this  was  characteristic.  A  defect  of  some  sort  pervades 
his  pictures.  Their  great  want  is  equality  and  congruity, 
■ —  that  perfect  union  of  qualities  which  we  call  taste. 
His  apartment,  especially  at  that  period  when  he  lived  in 
his  painting-room,  was  in  itself  a  study  of  the  most 
picturesque  kind.  Besides  the  great  picture  itself,  for 
which  there  seemed  hardly  space  between  the  walls,  it 
was  crowded  with  casts,  lay  figures,  arms,  tripods,  vases, 
draperies,  and  costumes  of  all  ages,  weapons  of  all  nations, 
books  in  all  tongues.  These  cumbered  the  floor  ;  whilst 
around  hung  smaller  pictures,  sketches,  and  drawings, 
replete  with  originality  and  force.  With  chalk  he  could 
do  what  he  chose.  I  remember  he  once  drew  for  me  a 
head  of  hair  with  nine  of  his  sweeping,  vigorous  strokes ! 
Among  the  studies  I  remarked  that  day  in  his  apartment 
was  one  of  a  mother  who  had  just  lost  her  only  child,  — 
a  most  masterly  rendering  of  an  unspeakable  grief.  A 
sonnet,  which  I  could  not  help  writing  on  this  sketch, 
gave  rise  to  our  long  correspondence,  and  to  a  friendship 
which  never  flagged.  Everybody  feels  that  his  life,  as 
told  by  Mr.  Taylor,  with  its  terrible  catastrophe,  is  a  stern 
lesson  to  young  artists,  an  awful  warning  that  cannot  be 


MISS  MITFORD.  271 


set  aside.  Let  us  not  forget  that  amongst  his  many  faults 
are  qualities  which  hold  out  a  bright  example.  His  de- 
votion to  his  noble  art,  his  conscientious  pursuit  of  every 
study  connected  with  it,  his  unwearied  industry,  his  love 
of  beauty  and  of  excellence,  his  warm  family  affection, 
his  patriotism,  his  courage,  and  his  piety,  will  not  easily 
be  surpassed.  Thinking  of  them,  let  us  speak  tenderly 
of  the  ardent  spirit  whose  violence  would  have  been 
softened  by  better  fortune,  and  who,  if  more  successful, 
would  have  been  more  gentle  and  more  humble." 

And  so  with  her  vigilant  and  appreciative  eye  she  saw, 
and  thus  in  her  own  charming  way  she  talked  of,  the 
man  whose  name,  says  Taylor,  as  a  popularizer  of  art, 
stands  without  a  rival  among  his  brethren. 

She  loathed  mere  dandies,  and  there  were  no  epithets 
too  hot  for  her  contempts  in  that  direction.  Old  beaux 
she  heartily  despised,  and,  speaking  of  one  whom  she  had 
known,  I  remember  she  quoted  with  a  fine  scorn  this  ap- 
propriate passage  from  Dickens  :  "  Ancient,  dandified  men, 
those  crippled  invaluhs  from  the  campaign  of  vanity, 
where  the  only  powder  was  hair-powder,  and  the  only 
bullets  fancy  balls." 

There  was  no  half-way  with  her,  and  she  never  could 

have  said  with  M S ,  when  a  certain  visitor  left 

the  room  one  day  after  a  call,  "If  we  did  not  love  our  dear 
friend  Mr. so  much,  should  n't  we  hate  him  tremen- 
dously ! "  Her  neighbor,  John  Euskin,  she  thought  as  elo- 
quent a  prose-writer  as  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  I  have  heard 
her  go  on  in  her  fine  way,  giving  preferences  to  certain 
modern  poems  far  above  the  works  of  the  great  masters 
of  song.  Pascal  says  that  "  the  heart  has  reasons  that 
reason  does  not  know  " ;  and  Miss  Mitford  was  a  charm- 
ing exemplification  of  this  wise  saying. 

Her  dogs  and  her  geraniums  were  her  great  glories.  She 
used  to  write  me  long  letters  about  Fanchon,  a  dog  whose 


272  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

personal  acquaintance  I  had  made  some  time  before,  while 
on  a  visit  to  her  cottage.  Every  virtue  under  heaven  she 
attributed  to  that  canine  individual ;  and  I  was  obliged  to 
allow  in  my  return  letters,  that,  since  our  planet  began  to 
spin,  nothing  comparable  to  Fanchon  had  ever  run  on  four 
legs.  I  had  also  known  Flush,  the  ancestor  of  Fanchon, 
intimately,  and  had  been  accustomed  to  hear  wonderful 
things  of  that  dog ;  but  Fanchon  had  graces  and  genius 
unique.  Miss  Mitford  would  have  joined  with  Hamerton 
in  his  gratitude  for  canine  companionship,  when  he  says, 
"  I  humbly  thank  Divine  Providence  for  having  invented 
dogs,  and  I  regard  that  man  with  wondering  pity  who  can 
lead  a  dogless  life." 

Her  fondness  for  rural  life,  one  may  well  imagine,  was 
almost  unparalleled.  I  have  often  been  with  her  among 
the  wooded  lanes  of  her  pretty  country,  listening  for  the 
nightingales,  and  on  such  occasions  she  would  discourse  so 
eloquently  of  the  sights  and  sounds  about  us,  that  her  talk 
seemed  to  me  "  far  above  singing."  She  had  fallen  in  love 
vrith  nature  when  a  little  child,  and  had  studied  the  land- 
scape till  she  knew  familiarly  every  flower  and  leaf  which 
ctows  on  English  soil.  She  delighted  in  rural  vagabonds 
of  every  sort,  especially  in  gypsies  ;  and  as  they  flourished 
in  her  part  of  the  country,  she  knew  all  their  ways,  and 
had  charming  stories  to  tell  of  their  pranks  and  thievings. 
She  called  them  "  the  commoners  of  nature  "  ;  and  once  I 
remember  she  pointed  out  to  me  on  the  road  a  villanous- 
looking  youth  on  whom  she  smiled  as  we  passed,  as  if  he 
had  been  Virtue  itself  in  footpad  disguise.  She  knew  all 
the  literature  of  rural  life,  and  her  memory  was  stored  with 
delightful  eulogies  of  forests  and  meadows.  When  she 
repeated  or  read  aloud  the  poetry  she  loved,  her  accents 
were 

'"  Like  flowers'  voices,  if  they  could  but  speak." 

She  understood  how  to  enjoy  rural  occupations  and  rural 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  273 

existence,  and  she  had  no  patience  with  her  friend  Charles 
Lamb,  who  preferred  the  town.  Walter  Savage  Landor 
addressed  these  lines  to  her  a  few  months  before  she  died, 
and  they  seem  to  me  very  perfect  and  lovely  in  their  ap- 
plication :  — 

"  The  hay  is  carried  ;  and  the  hours 
Snatch,  as  they  pass,  the  linden  flow'rs  ; 
And  children  leap  to  pluck  a  spray 
Bent  earthward,  and  then  run  away. 
Park-keeper!  catch  me  those  grave  thieves 
About  whose  frocks  the  fragrant  leaves, 
Sticking  and  fluttering  here  and  there, 
No  false  nor  faltering  witness  hear. 

"  I  never  view  such  scenes  as  these 
In  grassy  meadow  girt  with  trees, 
But  comes  a  thought  of  her  who  now 
Sits  with  serenely  patient  brow 
Amid  deep  sufferings  :  none  hath  told 
More  pleasant  tales  to  young  and  old. 
Fondest  was  she  of  Father  Thames, 
But  rambled  to  Hellenic  streams  ; 
Nor  even  there  could  any  tell 
The  country's  purer  charms  so  well 
As  Mary  Mitford. 

Verse  !  go  forth 
And  breathe  o'er  gentle  breasts  her  worth. 
Needless  the  task  ....  but  should  she  see 
One  hearty  wish  from  you  and  me, 
A  moment's  pain  it  may  assuage,  — 
A  rose-leaf  on  the  couch  of  Age." 

And  Harriet  Martineau  pays  her  respects  to  my  friend 
in  this  wise :  "  Miss  Mitford' s  descriptions  of  scenery, 
brutes,  and  human  beings  have  such  singular  merit,  that 
she  may  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  a  new  style ;  and 
if  the  freshness  wore  off  with  time,  there  was  much  more 
than  a  compensation  in  the  fine  spirit  of  resignation  and 
cheerfulness  which  breathed  through  everything  she  wrote, 
and  endeared  her  as  a  suffering  friend  to  thousands  who 
formerly  regarded  her  only  as  a  most  entertaining  stranger." 

What  lovely  drives  about  England  I  have  enjoyed  with 
12*  R 


274  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Miss  Mitford  as  my  companion  and  guide !  We  used  to 
arrange  with  her  trusty  Sam  for  a  day  now  and  then  in 
the  open  air.  He  would  have  everything  in  readiness  at 
the  appointed  hour,  and  be  at  his  post  with  that  careful, 
kind-hearted  little  maid,  the  "hemrner  of  flounces,"  all 
prepared  to  give  the  old  lady  a  fair  start  on  her  day's  ex- 
pedition. Both  those  excellent  servants  delighted  to  make 
their  mistress  happy,  and  she  greatly  rejoiced  in  their  de- 
votion and  care.  Perhaps  we  had  made  our  plans  to  visit 
Upton  Court,  a  charming  old  house  where  Pope's  Arabella 
Fermor  had  passed  many  years  of  her  married  life.  On 
the  way  thither  we  would  talk  over  "  The  Rape  of  the 
Lock  "  and  the  heroine,  Belinda,  who  was  no  other  than 
Arabella  herself.  Arriving  on  the  lawn  in  front  of  the 
decaying  mansion,  we  would  stop  in  the  shade  of  a  gigan- 
tic oak,  and  gossip  about  the  times  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
for  it  was  then  the  old  house  was  built,  no  doubt. 

Once  I  remember  Miss  Mitford  carried  me  on  a  pilgrim- 
age to  a  grand  old  village  church  with  a  tower  half  covered 
with  ivy.  We  came  to  it  through  laurel  hedges,  and  passed 
on  the  way  a  magnificent  cedar  of  Lebanon.  It  was  a 
superb  pile,  rich  in  painted  glass  windows  and  carved  oak 
ornaments.  Here  Miss  Mitford  ordered  the  man  to  stop, 
and,  turning  to  me  with  great  enthusiasm,  said,  "  This  is 
Shiplake  Church,  where  Alfred  Tennyson  was  married  !  " 
Then  we  rode  on  a  little  farther,  and  she  called  my  atten- 
tion to  some  of  the  finest  wych-elms  I  had  ever  seen. 

Another  day  we  drove  along  the  valley  of  the  Loddon, 
and  she  pointed  out  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  seat  of 
Strathfieldsaye.  As  our  pony  trotted  leisurely  over  the 
charming  road,  she  told  many  amusing  stories  of  the 
Duke's  economical  habits,  and  she  rated  him  soundly  for 
his  money-saving  propensities.  The  furniture  in  the  house 
she  said  was  a  disgrace  to  the  great  man,  and  she  described 
a  certain  old  carpet  that  had  done  service  so  many  years 


MISS  MITFORD.  275 

in  the  establishment   that  no  one  could  tell  what   the 
original  colors  were. 

But  the  mansion  most  dear  to  her  in  that  neighborhood 
was  the  residence  of  her  kind  friends  the  Kussells  of  Swal- 
low Held  Park.  It  is  indeed  a  beautiful  old  place,  full  of 
historical  and  literary  associations,  for  there  Lord  Claren- 
don wrote  his  story  of  the  Great  Rebellion.  Miss  Mitford 
never  ceased  to  be  thankful  that  her  declining  years  were 
passing  in  the  society  of  such  neighbors  as  the  Kussells. 
If  she  were  unusually  ill,  they  were  the  first  to  know  of  it 
and  come  at  once  to  her  aid.  Little  attentions,  so  grateful 
to  old  age,  they  were  always  on  the  alert  to  offer ;  and  she 
frequently  told  me  that  their  affectionate  kindness  had 
helped  her  over  the  dark  places  of  life  more  than  once, 
where  without  their  succor  she  must  have  dropped  by 
the  way. 

As  a  letter-writer,  Miss  Mitford  has  rarely  been  sur- 
passed. Her  "  Life,  as  told  by  herself  in  Letters  to  her 
Friends,"  is  admirably  done  in  every  particular.  Few- 
letters  in  the  English  language  are  superior  to  hers,  and  I 
think  they  will  come  to  be  regarded  as  among  the  choicest 
specimens  of  epistolary  literature.  When  her  friend,  the 
Kev.  William  Harness,  was  about  to  collect  from  Miss 
Mitford's  correspondents,  for  publication,  the  letters  she 
had  written  to  them,  he  applied  to  me  among  others.  I 
was  obliged  to  withhold  the  correspondence  for  a  reason 
that  existed  then ;  but  I  am  no  longer  restrained  from 
printing  it  now.  Miss  Mitford's  first  letter  to  me  was 
written  in  1847,  and  her  last  one  came  only  a  few  weeks 
before  she  died,  in  1855.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  her 
correspondence,  so  full  of  point  in  allusions,  so  full  of 
anecdote  and  recollections,  will  be  considered  among  her 
finest  writings.  Her  criticisms,  not  always  the  wisest,  were 
always  piquant  and  readable.  She  had  such  a  charming 
humor,  and  her  style  was  so  delightful,  that  her  friendly 


276  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

notes  had  a  relish  about  theru  quite  their  own.  In  read- 
ins-  some  of  them  here  collected  one  will  see  that  she 
overrated  my  little  services  as  she  did  those  of  many  of 
her  personal  friends.  I  shall  have  hard  work  to  place  the 
dates  properly,  for  the  good  lady  rarely  took  the  trouble  to 
put  either  month  or  year  at  the  head  of  her  paper. 

She  began  her  correspondence  with  me  before  I  left 
England  after  making  her  acquaintance,  and,  true  to  the 
instincts  of  her  kind  heart,  the  object  of  her  first  letter 
was  to  press  upon  my  notice  the  poems  of  a  young  friend 
of  hers,  and  she  was  constantly  saying  good  words  for  un- 
fledged authors  who  were  struggling  forward  to  gain  recog- 
nition. No  one  ever  lent  such  a  helping  hand  as  she  did 
to  the  young  writers  of  her  country. 

The  recognition  which  America,  very  early  in  the  career 
of  Miss  Mitford,  awarded  her,  she  never  forgot,  and  she 
used  to  say,  "  It  takes  ten  years  to  make  a  literary  repu- 
tation in  England,  but  America  is  wiser  and  bolder,  and 
dares  say  at  once,  '  This  is  fine.' " 

Sweetness  of  temper  and  brightness  of  mind,  her  never- 
failing  characteristics,  accompanied  her  to  the  last ;  and 
she  passed  on  in  her  usual  cheerful  and  affectionate  mood, 
her  sympathies  uncontracted  by  age,  narrow  fortune, 
and  pain. 

A  plain  substantial  cross  marks  the  spot  in  the  old 
churchyard  at  Swallowfield,  where,  according  to  her  own 
wish,  Mary  Mitford  lies  sleeping.  It  is  proposed  to  erect 
a  memorial  in  the  old  parish  church  to  her  memory,  and 
her  admirers  in  England  have  determined,  if  a  sufficient 
sum  can  be  raised,  to  build  what  shall  be  known  as  "  The 
Mitford  Aisle,"  to  afford  accommodation  for  the  poor  peo- 
ple who  are  not  able  to  pay  for  seats.  Several  of  Miss 
Mitford's  American  friends  will  join  in  this  beautiful  ob- 
ject, and  a  tablet  will  be  put  up  in  the  old  church  com- 
memorating the  fact  that  England  and  America  united  in 
the  tribute. 


MISS   MITFORD.  277 


LETTERS,  1848-1849. 

Three-Mile  Cross,  December  4, 1848. 
Dear  Mr.  Fields  :  My  silence  has  been  caused  by  severe  illness. 
For  more  than  a  twelvemonth  my  health  has  been  so  impaired  as  to 
leave  me  a  very  poor  creature,  almost  incapable  of  any  exertion 
at  all  times,  and  frequently  suffering  severe  pain  besides.  So 
that  I  have  to  entreat  the  friends  who  are  good  enough  to  care  for 
me  never  to  be  displeased  if  a  long  time  elapses  between  my  letters. 
My  correspondents  being  so  numerous,  and  I  myself  so  utterly 
alone,  without  any  one  even  to  fold  or  seal  a  letter,  that  the  very 
physical  part  of  the  task  sometimes  becomes  more  fatiguing  than  I 
can  bear.  I  am  not,  generally  speaking,  confined  to  my  room,  or 
even  to  the  house;  but  the  loss  of  power  is  so  great  that  after  the 
short  drive  or  shorter  walk  which  my  very  skilful  medical  adviser 
orders,  I  am  too  often  compelled  to  retire  immediately  to  bed,  and  I 
have  not  once  been  well  enough  to  go  out  of  an  evening  during  the 
rear  1848.  Before  its  expiration  I  shall  have  completed  my  sixty- 
first  year  ;  but  it  is  not  age  that  has  so  prostrated  me,  but  the  hard 
work  and  increasing  anxiety  of  thirty  years  of  authorship,  during 
which  my  poor  labors  were  all  that  my  dear  father  and  mother 
!iad  to  look  to,  besides  which  for  the  greater  part  of  that  time  I  was 
constantly  called  upon  to  attend  to  the  sick-bed,  first  of  one  aged 
parent  and  then  of  another.  Few  women  could  stand  this,  and  I 
have  only  to  be  intensely  thankful  that  the  power  of  exertion  did 
not  fail  until  the  necessity  of  such  exertion  was  removed.  Now 
my  poor  life  is  (beyond  mere  friendly  feeling)  of  value  to  no  one. 
I  have,  too,  many  alleviations,  —  in  the  general  kindness  of  the 
neighborhood,  the  particular  goodness  of  many  admirable  friends, 
the  affectionate  attention  of  a  most  attached  and  intelligent  old 
servant,  and  above  all  in  my  continued  interest  in  books  and  delight 
in  reading.  I  love  poetry  and  people  as  well  at  sixty  as  I  did  at  six- 
teen, and  can  never  be  sufficiently  grateful  to  G-od  for  having  per- 
mitted me  to  retain  the  two  joy-giving  faculties  of  admiration  and 
sympathy,  by  which  we  are  enabled  to  escape  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  our  own  infirmities  into  the  great  works  of  all  ages  and  the 
joys  and  sorrows  of  our  immediate  friends.  Among  the  books 
which  I  have  been  reading  with  the  greatest  interest  is  the  Life 
of  Dr.  Channing,  and  I  can  hardly  tell  you  the  glow  of  gratification 
with  which  I  found  my  own  name  mentioned,  as  one  of  the  writers 
in  whose  works  that  great  man  had  taken  pleasure     The  approba' 


278  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


tion  of  Dr.  Charming  is  something  worth  toiling  for.  I  know  no  in- 
dividual suffrage  that  could  have  given  me  more  delight  Besides 
this  selfish  pleasure  and  the  intense  interest  with  which  I  followed 
that  admirable  thinker  through  the  whole  course  of  his  pure  and 
blameless  life,  I  have  derived  another  and  a  different  satisfaction 
from  that  work,  —  I  mean  from  its  reception  in  England.  I  know 
nothing  that  shows  a  greater  improvement  in  liberality  in  the  least 
liberal  part  of  the  English  public,  a  greater  sweeping  away  of  preju- 
dice whether  national  or  sectarian,  than  the  manner  in  which  even 
the  High  Church  and  Tory  party  have  spoken  of  Dr.  Channing. 
They  really  seem  to  cast  aside  their  usual  intolerance  in  his  case, 
and  to  look  upon  a  Unitarian  with  feelings  of  Christian  fellowship. 
God  grant  that  this  spirit  may  continue  1  Is  American  literature 
rich  in  native  biography  ?  Just  have  the  goodness  to  mention  to 
me  any  lives  of  Americans,  whether  illustrious  or  not,  that  are 
graphic,  minute,  and  outspoken.  I  delight  in  French  memoirs  and 
English  lives,  especially  such  as  are  either  autobiography  or  made 
out  by  diaries  and  letters :  and  America,  a  young  country  with 
manners  as  picturesque  and  unhackneyed  as  the  scener}r,  ought  to 
be  full  of  such  works.  We  have  had  two  volumes  lately  that  will 
interest  your  countrymen :  Mr.  Milnes's  Life  of  John  Keats,  that 
wonderful  youth  whose  early  death  was,  I  think,  the  greatest  loss 
that  English  poetry  ever  experienced.  Some  of  the  letters  are 
very  striking  as  developments  or  character,  and  the  richness  of 
diction  hi  the  poetical  fragments  is  exquisite.  Mrs.  Browning  is 
still  at  Florence  with  her  husband.  She  sees  more  Americans  than 
English. 

Books  here  are  sadly  depreciated.  Mr.  Dyce's  admirable  edition 
of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  brought  out  two  years  ago  at  £6  12  s. 
is  now  offered  at  £2  17  s. 

Adieu,  dear  Mr.  Fields ;  forgive  my  seeming  neglect,  and  believe 
me  always  most  faithfully  yours, 

M.  R.  MlTFORD. 

(No  date,  1849.) 
Dear  Mr.  Fields  :  I  cannot  tell  you  how  vexed  I  am  at  this  mis- 
take about  letters,  which  must  have  made  you  think  me  careless  of 
your  correspondence  and  ungrateful  for  your  kindness.  The  same 
thing  has  happened  to  me  before,  I  may  say  often,  with  American 
letters,  —  with  Professor  Norton,  Mrs.  Sigourney,  the  Sedgwicks, 
- —  in  short,  I  always  feel  an  insecurity  in  writing  to  America 
which  I  never  experience  in  corresponding  with  friends  on  the  Con- 


MISS   MIT  FORD.  279 

tinent;  France,  Germany,  Italy,  even  Poland  and  Russia,  are  com- 
paratively certain.  Whether  it  be  the  agents  in  London  who  lose 
letters,  or  some  fault  in  the  post-office,  I  cannot  tell,  but  I  have 
twenty  times  experienced  the  vexation,  and  it  casts  a  certain  dis- 
couragement over  one's  communications.  However,  I  hope  that 
this  letter  will  reach  you,  and  that  you  will  be  assured  that  the  fault 
does  not  lie  at  my  door. 

During  the  last  year  or  two  my  health  has  been  declining  much, 
and  I  am  just  now  thinking  of  taking  a  journey  to  Paris.  My 
friend,  Henry  Chorley  of  the  Athemeum,  the  first  musical  critic  of 
Europe,  is  going  thither  next  month  to  assist  at  the  production  of 
Meyerbeer's  Prophete  at  the  French  Opera,  and  another  friend  will 
accompany  me  and  my  little  maid  to  take  care  of  us ;  so  that  I 
have  just  hopes  that  the  excursion,  erenow  much  facilitated  by  rail- 
ways, may  do  me  good.  I  have  always  been  a  great  admirer  of  the 
great  Emperor,  and  to  see  the  heir  of  Napoleon  at  the  Elysee  seems 
to  me  a  real  piece  of  poetical  justice.  I  know  many  of  his  friends 
in  England,  who  all  speak  of  him  most  highly  ;  one  of  them  says, 
"  He  is  the  very  impersonation  of  calm  and  simple  honesty."  I 
hope  the  nation  will  be  true  to  him,  but,  as  Mirabeau  says,  "  there 
are   no   such   words   as    'jamais'    or   'toujours'    with    the  French 

public." 

10th  of  June,  1849. 

I  have  been  waiting  to  answer  your  most  kind  and  interesting 
fetter,  dear  Mr.  Fields,  until  I  could  announce  to  you  a  publication 
that  Mr.  Colburn  has  been  meditating  and  pressing  me  for,  but 
which,  chiefly  I  believe  from  my  own  fault  in  not  going  to  town, 
and  not  liking  to  give  him  or  Mr.  Shoberl  the  trouble  of  coming 
here,  is  now  probably  adjourned  to  the  autumn.  The  fact  is  that  I 
ha  ;e  been  and  still  am  very  poorly.  We  are  stricken  in  our  vani- 
ties, and  the  only  tilings  that  I  recollect  having  ever  been  immoder- 
ately proud  of  —  my  garden  and  my  personal  activity  —  have  both 
now  turned  into  causes  of  shame  and  pity  ;  the  garden,  declining  from 
one  bad  gardener  to  worse,  has  become  a  ploughed  field,  —  and  I 
myself,  from  a  severe  attack  of  rheumatism,  and  since  then  a  terrible 
fright  in  a  pony-chaise,  am  now  little  better  than  a  cripple.  How- 
ever, if  there  be  punishment  here  below,  there  are  likewise  consola- 
tions,—  everybody  is  kind«to  me  ;  I  retain  the  vivid  love  of  reading, 
which  is  one  of  the  highest  pleasures  of  life  ;  and  very  interesting 
persons  come  to  see  me  sometimes,  from  both  sides  of  the  water, 
--  witness,  dear  Mr.  Fields,  our  present  correspondence.  One  such 
person  arrived  yesterday  in  the  shape  of  Doctor ,  who  has  been 


280  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

working  musical  miracles  in  Scotland,  (think  of  making  singing 
teachers  of  children  of  four  or  five  years  of  age !)  and  is  now  on  his 
way  to  Paris,  where,  having  been  during  seven  years  one  of  the 
editors  of  the  National,  he  will  find  most  of  his  colleagues  of  the 
newspaper  filling  the  highest  posts  in  the  government.  What  is 
the  American  opinion  of  that  great  experiment ;  or,  rather,  what  is 
yours  ?  I  wish  it  success  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  but  I  am  a 
little  afraid,  from  their  total  want  of  political  economy  (we  have  not 
a  school-girl  so  ignorant  of  the  commonest  principles  of  demand 
and  supply  as  the  whole  of  the  countrymen  of  Turgot  from  the 
executive  government  downwards),  and  from  a  certain  warlike 
tendency  which  seems  to  me  to  pierce  through  all  their  declarations 
of  peace.  We  hear  the  flourish  of  trumpets  through  all  the  fine 
phrases  of  the  orators,  and  indeed  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  what 
they  will  do  with  their  soi-disant  ouvriers,  —  workmen  who  have 
lost  the  habit  of  labor,  —  unless  they  make  soldiers  of  them.  In 
the  mean  time  some  friends  of  mine  are  about  to  accompany  your 
countryman  Mr.  Elihu  Burritt  as  a  deputation,  and  doubtless  M.  de 
Lamartine  will  give  them  as  eloquent  an  answer  as  heart  can  desire, 
—  no  doubt  he  will  keep  peace  if  he  can,  —  but  the  government 
have  certainly  not  hitherto  shown  firmness  or  vigor  enough  to  make 
one  rely  upon  them,  if  the  question  becomes  pressing  and  personal. 
In  Italy  matters  seem  to  be  very  promising.  We  have  here  one  of 
the  Silvio  Pellico  exiles,  —  Count  Carpinetta,  —  whose  story  is  quite 
a  romance.  He  is  just  returned  from  Turin,  where  he  was  received 
with  enthusiasm,  might  have  been  returned  as  Deputy  for  two 
places,  and  did  recover  some  of  his  property,  confiscated  years  ago 
by  the  Austrians.  It  does  one's  heart  good  to  see  a  piece  of  poetical 
justice  transferred  to  real  life.  Apropos  of  public  events,  all  Lon- 
don is  talking  of  the  prediction  of  an  old  theological  writer  of  the 
name  of  Fleming,  who  in  or  about  the  year  1700  prophesied  a 
revolution  in  France  in  1794  (only  one  year  wrong),  and  the  fall 
->f  papacy  in  1848  at  all  events. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

(No  date,  1849.) 
Dear  Mr.  Fields  :  I  must  have  seemed  very  ungrateful  in  being 
so  long  silent.  But  your  magnificent  prtsent  of  books,  beautiful  in 
every  sense  of  the  word,  has  come  dropping  in  volume  by  volume, 
and  only  arrived  complete  (Mr.  Longfellow's  striking  book  being  the 
last)  about  a  fortnight  ago,  and  then  it  found  me  keeping  my  room, 
as  I  am  still  doing,  with  a  tremendous  attack  of  neuralgia  on  the  left 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  281 


side  of  the  face.  I  am  getting  better  now  by  dint  of  blisters  and 
tonic  nedicine ;  but  I  can  answer  for  that  disease  well  deserving 
its  bad  eminence  of  "painful."  It  is  however,  blessed  be  God! 
more  manageable  than  it  used  to  be ;  and  my  medical  friend,  a  man 
of  singular  skill,  promises  me  a  cure. 

I  have  seen  things  of  Longfellow's  as  fine  as  anything  in  Camp- 
bell or  Coleridge  or  Tennyson  or  Hood.  After  all,  our  great  lyrical 
poets  are  great  only  for  half  a  volume.  Look  at  Gray  and  Collins, 
at  your  own  edition  of  the  man  whom  one  song  immortalized,  at 
Gerald  Griffin,  whom  you  perhaps  do  not  know,  and  at  Words- 
worth, who,  greatest  of  the  great  for  about  a  hundred  pages,  is 
drowned  in  the  flood  of  his  own  wordiness  in  his  longer  works. 
To  be  sure,  there  are  giants  who  are  rich  to  overflowing  through  a 
whole  shelf  of  books,  —  Shakespeare,  the  mutual  ancestor  of  English- 
men and  Americans,  above  all,  —  and  I  think  the  much  that  they  did, 
and  did  well,  will  be  the  great  hold  on  posterity  of  Scott  and  of 
Byron.  Have  you  happened  to  see  Bulwer's  King  Arthur?  It 
astonished  me  very  much.  I  had  a  full  persuasion  that,  with  great 
merit  in  a  certain  way,  he  would  never  be  a  poet.  Indeed,  he  is 
beginning  poetry  just  at  the  age  when  Scott,  Southey,  and  a  host 
of  others,  left  it  off.  But  he  is  a  strange  person,  full  of  the  power- 
ful quality  called  will,  and  has  produced  a  work  which,  although  it  is 
not  at  all  in  the  fashionable  vein  and  has  made  little  noise,  has  yet 
extraordinary  merit.  When  I  say  that  it  is  more  like  Ariosto  than 
any  other  English  poem  that  I  know,  1  certainly  give  it  no  mean 
praise. 

Everybody  is  impatient  for  Mr.  George  Ticknor's  work.  The 
subject  seems  to  me  full  of  interest.  Lord  Holland  made  a  charm- 
ing book  of  Lope  de  Vega  years  ago,  and  Mr.  Ticknor,  with  equal 
qualifications  and  a  much  wider  field,  will  hardly  fail  of  delighting 
England  and  America.  Will  you  remember  me  to  him  most  grate- 
fully and  respectfully  ?  He  is  a  man  whom  no  one  can  forget.  As 
to  Mr.  Prescott,  I  know  no  author  now,  except  perhaps  Mr.  Ma- 
caulay,  whose  works  command  so  much  attention  and  give  so  much 
delight.  I  am  ashamed  to  send  you  so  little  news,  but  I  live  in  the 
country  and  see  few  people.  The  day  I  caught  my  terrible  Tic  I 
spent  with  the  great  capitalist,  Mr.  Goldsmidt,  and  Mr.  Cobden  and 
his  pretty  wife.  He  is  a  very  different  person  from  what  one  ex- 
pects,—  graceful,  tasteful,  playful,  simple,  and  refined,  and  looking  ab- 
solutely young.  I  suspect  that  much  of  his  power  springs  from  his 
genial  character.  I  heard  last  week  from  Mrs.  Browning ;  she  and 
her  husband  are  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca.     Mr.  Kenyon's  graceful 


282  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


book  is  out,  and  I  must  not  forget  to  tell  you  that  "  Our  Village  " 
has  been  printed  by  Mr.  Bohn  in  two  volumes,  which  include  the 
whole  five.  It  is  beautifully  got  up  and  very  cheap,  that  is  to  say, 
for  3  s.  6  d.  a  volume.  Did  Mr.  Whittier  send  his  works,  or  do  I  owe 
them  wholly  to  your  kindness  ?  If  he  sent  them,  I  will  write  by 
the  first  opportunity.     Say  everything  for  me  to  your  young  friend, 

.and  believe  me  ever,,  dear  Mr.  F most  faithfully  and  gratefully 

yours,  M.  R.  M. 

1850. 

(No  date.) 

I  have  to  thank  you  very  earnestly,  dear  Mr.  Fields,  for  two  very 
interesting  books.  The  "  Leaves  from  Margaret  Smith's  Journal "  are, 
I  suppose,  a  sort  of  Lady  Willoughby's  Diary,  so  well  executed  that 
they  read  like  one  of  the  imitations  of  Defoe,  —  his  "  Memoirs  of  a 
Cavalier,"  for  instance,  which  always  seemed  to  me  quite  as  true  as 
if  they  had  been  actually  written  seventy  years  before.  Thank  you 
over  and  over  again  for  these  admirable  books  and  for  your  great 
kindness  and  attention.  What  a  perfectly  American  name  Peabody 
is !  And  how  strange  it  is  that  there  should  be  in  the  United  States 
so  many  persons  of  English  descent  whose  names  have  entirely  dis- 
appeared from  the  land  of  their  fathers.  Did  you  get  my  last  un- 
worthy letter  ?  I  hope  you  did.  It  would  at  all  events  show  that 
there  was  on  my  part  no  intentional  neglect,  that  I  certainly  had 
written  in  reply  to  the  last  letter  that  I  received,  although  doubtless 
a  letter  had  been  lost  on  one  side  or  the  other.  I  live  so  entirely  in 
the  quiet  country  that  I  have  little  to  tell  you  that  can  be  interest- 
ing. Two  things  indeed,  not  generally  known,  I  may  mention :  that 
Stanfield  Hall,  the  scene  of  the  horrible  murder  of  which  you  have 
doubtless  read,  was  the  actual  birthplace  of  Amy  Robsart,  —  of 
whose  tragic  end,  by  the  way,  there  is  at  last  an  authentic  account, 
both  in  the  new  edition  of  Pepys  and  the  first  volume  of  the  "  Ro- 
mance of  the  Peerage  "  ;  and  that  a  friend  of  mine  saw  the  other  day 
in  the  window  of  a  London  bookseller  a  copy  of  Hume,  ticketed 
"  An  Excellent  Introduction  to  Macaulay."  The  great  man  was 
much  amused  at  this  practical  compliment,  as  well  he  might  be.  I 
have  been  reading  the  autobiographies  of  Lamartine  and  Chateau- 
briand, as  well  as  Raphael,  which,  although  not  avowed,  is  of  course 
and  most  certainly  a  continuation  of  ';  Les  Confiances."  What 
strange  beings  these  Frenchmen  are !  Here  is  M.  de  Lamartine  at 
sixty,  poet,  orator,  historian,  and  statesman,  writing  the  stories 
of  two  ladies — one  of  them  married  —  who  died  for  love  of  him' 


MISS  MITFORD.  283 

Think  if  Mr.  Macaulay  should  announce  himself  as  a  lady-killer,  and 
put  the  details  not  merely  into  a  book,  but  into  a  feuilleton ! 

The  Browuings  are  living  quite  quietly  at  Florence,  seeing,  I  sus- 
pect, more  Americans  than  English.  Mrs.  Trollope  has  lost  her  only 
remaining  daughter ;  arrived  in  England  only  time  enough  to  see 
her  die. 

Adieu,  dear  Mr.  Fields;  say  everything  for  me  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 

Ticknor,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Norton.     How  much  I  should  like  to  see 

you  I 

Ever  faithfully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

(February,  1850.) 
You  will  have  thought  me  either  dead  or  dying,  my  dear  Mr. 
Fields,  for  ungrateful  I  hope  you  could  not  think  me  to  such  a  friend 
as  yourself,  but  in  truth  I  have  been  in  too  much  trouble  and 
anxiety  to  write.  This  is  the  story  :  T  live  alone,  and  my  servants 
become,  as  they  are  in  France,  and  ought,  I  think,  always  to  be, 
really  and  truly  part  of  my  family.  A  most  sensible  young  woman, 
my  own  maid,  who  waits  upon  me  and  walks  out  with  me,  (we  have 
another  to  do  the  drudgery  of  our  cottage,)  has  a  little  fatherless  boy 
who  is  the  pet  of  the  house.  I  wonder  whether  you  saw  him  dur- 
ing the  glimpse  we  had  of  you!  He  is  a  fair-haired  child  of  six 
years  old,  singularly  quick  in  intellect,  and  as  bright  in  mind  and 
heart  and  temper  as  a  fountain  in  the  sun.  He  is  at  school  in 
Reading,  and,  the  small-pox  raging  there  like  a  pestilence,  they  sent 
him  home  to  us  to  be  out  of  the  way.  The  very  next  week  my 
man-servant  was  seized  with  it,  after  vaccination  of  course.  Our 
medical  friend  advised  me  to  send  him  away,  but  that  was,  in  my 
view  of  things,  out  of  the  question  ;  so  we  did  the  best  we  could,  — 
my  own  maid,  who  is  a  perfect  Sister  of  Charity  in  all  cases  of  ill- 
ness, sitting  up  with  him  for  seven  nights  following,  for  one  or  two 
were  requisite  during  the  delirium,  and  we  could  not  get  a  nurse  for 
love  or  money,  and  when  he  became  better,  then,  as  we  had  dreaded, 
our  poor  little  boy  was  struck  down.  However,  it  has  pleased  God 
to  spare  him,  and,  after  a  long  struggle,  he  is  safe  from  the  disorder 
and  almost  restored  to  his  former  health.  But  we  are  still  under  a 
sort  of  quarantine,  for,  although  people  pretend  to  believe  in  vacci- 
nation, they  avoid  the  house  as  if  the  plague  were  in  it,  and  stop 
their  carriages  at  the  end  of  the  village  and  send  inquiries  and 
cards,  and  in  my  mind  they  are  right.  To  say  nothing  of  Reading, 
there  have  been  above  thirty  severe  cases,  after  vaccination,  in  our 
immediate  neighborhood,  hve  of  them  fatal.     1  had  been  inoculated 


;84  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


after  the  old  style,  my  maid  had  had  the  small-pox  the  natural  way, 
and  the  only  one  who  escaped  was  a  young  girl  who  had  been  vac- 
cinated three  times,  the  last  two  years  ago.  Forgive  this  long  story ; 
it  was  necessary  to  excuse  my  most  unthankful  silence,  and  may 
serve  as  an  illustration  of  the  way  a  disease,  supposed  to  be  all  but 
exterminated,  is  making  head  again  in  England. 

Thank  you  a  thousand  and  a  thousand  times  for  your  most  de- 
lightful books.  Mr.  Whipple's  Lectures  are  magnificent,  and  your 
own  Boston  Book  could  not,  I  think,  be  beaten  by  a  London  Book, 
certainly  not  approached  by  the  collected  works  of  any  other 
British  city,  —  Edinburgh,  for  example. 

Mr.  Bennett  is  most  grateful  for  your  kindness,  and  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing will  be  no  less  enchanted  at  the  honor  done  her  husband.  It  is 
most  creditable  to  America  that  they  think  more  of  our  thoughtful 
poets  than  the  English  do  themselves. 

Two  female  friends  of  mine  —  Mrs.  Acton  Tindal,  a  young  beauty 
as  well  as  a  woman  of  genius,  and  a  Miss  Julia  Day,  whom  I  have 
never  seen,  but  whose  verses  show  extraordinary  purity  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  expression  —  have  been  putting  forth  books.  Julia  Day's 
second  series  she  has  done  me  the  honor  to  inscribe  to  me,  not- 
withstanding which  I  venture  to  say  how  very  much  I  admire  it, 
and  so  I  think  would  you.  Henry  Chorley  is  going  to  be  a  happy 
man.  All  his  life  long  he  has  been  dying  to  have  a  play  acted,  and 
now  he  has  one  coming  out  at  the  Surrey  Theatre,  over  Blackfriars 
Bridge.  He  lives  much  among  fine  people,  and  likes  the  notion  of 
a  Faubourg  audience.  Perhaps  he  is  right.  I  am  not  at  all  afraid 
of  the  play,  which  is  very  beautiful,  —  a  blank-verse  comedy  full  of 
truth  and  feeling.  I  don't  know  if  you  know  Henry  Chorley.  He 
is  the  friend  of  Bobert  Browning,  and  the  especial  favorite  of  John 
Kenyon,  and  has  always  been  a  sort  of  adopted  nephew  of  mine. 
Poor  Mrs.  Hemans  loved  him  well ;  so  did  a  very  different  person, 
Lady  Bles^ington, —  so  that  altogether  you  may  fancy  him  a  very 
likeable  person ;  but  he  is  much  more,  —  generous,  unselfish,  loyal, 
and  as  true  as  steel,  worth  all  his  writings  a  thousand  times  over.  If 
my  house  be  in  such  condition  as  to  allow  of  my  getting  to  London 
to  see  "  Old  Love  and  New  Fortune,"  I  shall  consult  with  Mr. 
Lucas  about  the  time  of  sitting  to  him  for  a  portrait,  as  I  have  prom- 
ised to  do ;  for,  although  there  be  several  extant,  not  one  is  pas- 
sably like.  John  Lucas  is  a  man  of  so  much  taste  that  he  will  make 
a  real  old  woman's  picture  of  it,  just  with  my  e very-day  look  and 
dress. 

Will  you  make  my  most  grateful  thanks  to  Mr.   Whipple,  and 


MISS  MITFORD.  285 


also  to  the  author  of  "  Greenwood  Leaves,"  which  I  read  with 
great  pleasure,  and  say  all  that  is  kindest  and  most  respectful  for 
me  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Ticknor.  I  shall  indeed  expect  great 
delight  from  his  book. 

Ever,  dear  Mr.  Fields,  most  gratefully  yours, 

M.  R.  M. 

We  have  had  a  Mr.  Richmond  here,  lecturing  and  so  forth.  Do 
you  know  him  ?  I  can  fancy  what  Mr.  Webster  would  be  on  the 
Hungarian  question.  To  hear  Mr.  Cobden  talk  of  it  was  like  the 
sound  of  a  trumpet. 

Three-Mile  Cross,  November  25, 1850. 

I  have  been  waiting  day  after  day,  dear  Mr.  Fields,  to  send  you  two 
books,  —  one  new,  the  other  old,  —  one  by  my  friend,  Mr.  Bennett ; 
the  other  a  volume  [her  Dramatic  Poems]  long  out  of  print  in  Eng- 
land, and  never,  I  think,  known  in  America.  I  had  great  difficulty  in 
procuring  the  shabby  copy  which  I  send  you,  but  I  think  you  will 
like  it  because  it  is  mine,  and  comes  to  you  from  friend  to  friend, 
and  because  there  is  more  of  myself,  that  is,  of  my  own  inner  feel- 
ings and  fancies,  than  one  ever  ventures  to  put  into  prose.  Mr. 
Bennett's  volume,  which  is  from  himself  as  well  as  from  me,  I  am 
sure  you  will  like;  most  thoroughly  would  like  each  other  if  evei 
you  met.  He  has  the  poet's  heart  and  the  poet's  mind,  large,  truth- 
ful, generous,  and  full  of  true  refinement,  delightful  as  a  compan- 
ion, and  invaluable  as  a  man. 

After  eight  years'  absolute  cessation  of  composition,  Henry  Chor- 
ley,  of  the  Athenaeum,  coaxed  me  last  summer  into  writing  for  a 
Lady's  Journal,  which  he  was  editing  for  Messrs.  Bradbury  and 
Evans,  certain  Readings  of  Poetry,  old  and  new,  which  will,  I  sup- 
pose, form  two  or  three  separate  volumes  when  collected,  buried  as 
they  now  are  amongst  all  the  trash  and  crochet-work  and  millinery. 
They  will  be  quite  as  good  as  MS.,  and,  indeed,  every  paper  will 
be  enlarged  and  above  as  many  again  added.  One  pleasure  will  be 
the  doing  what  justice  I  can  to  certain  American  poets,  —  Mr.  Whit- 
tier,  for  instance,  whose  "Massachusetts  to  Virginia"  is  amongst 
the  finest  things  ever  written.  I  gave  one  copy  to  a  most  intelli- 
gent Quaker  lady,  and  have  another  in  the  house  at  this  moment 
for  Mrs.  Walter,  widow  and  mother  of  the  two  John  Walters, 
father  and  son,  so  well  known  as  proprietors  of  the  limes.  I  shall 
cause  my  book  to  be  immediately  forwarded  to  you,  but  I  don't 
think  it  will  be  ready  for  a  twelvemonth.  There  is  a  good  deal  in 
it  of  my  own  prose,,  and  it  takes  a  wider  range  than  usual  of  poetry. 


286  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 

including  much  that  has  never  appeared  in  any  of  the  specimen 
books.  Of  course,  dear  friend,  this  is  strictly  between  you  and  me, 
because  it  would  greatly  damage  the  work  to  have  the  few  frag- 
ments that  have  appeared  as  yet  brought  forward  without  revision 
and  completion  in  their  present  detached  and  crude  form. 

This  England  of  ours  is  all  alight  and  aflame  with  Protestant  in- 
dignation against  popery ;  the  Church  of  England  being  likely  ta 
rekindle  the  fires  of  1780,  by  way  of  vindicating  the  right  of  pri- 
vate judgment.  I,  who  hold  perfect  freedom  of  thought  and  of  con^ 
science  the  most  precious  of  all  possessions,  have  of  course  my  own 
hatred  to  these  things.  Cardinal  Wiseman  has  taken  advantage  of 
the  attack  to  put  forth  one  of  the  most  brilliant  appeals  that  has 
appeared  in  my  time  ;  of  course  you  will  see  it  in  America. 

Professor  Longfellow  has  won  a  station  in  England  such  as  no 
American  poet  ever  held  before,  and  assuredly  he  deserves  it.  Ex- 
cept Beranger  and  Tennyson,  I  do  not  know  any  living  man  who  has 
written  things  so  beautiful.  I  think  I  like  his  Nuremburg  best  of  all. 
Mr.  Ticknor's  great  work,  too,  has  won  golden  opinions,  especially 
from  those  whose  applause  is  fame;  and  I  foresee  that  day  by  day 
our  literature  will  become  more  mingled  with  rich,  bright  novelties 
from  America,  not  reflections  of  European  brightness,  but  gems  all 
colored  with  your  own  skies  and  woods  and  waters.  Lord  Carlisle, 
the  most  accomplished  of  our  ministers  and  the  most  amiable  of  our 
nobles,  is  giving  this  very  week  to  the  Leeds  Mechanics'  Institute  a 
lecture  on  his  travels  in  the  United  States,  and  another  on  the 
poetry  of  Pope. 

May  I  ask  you  to  transmit  the  accompanying  letter  to  Mrs.  H ? 

She  has  sent  to  me  for  titles  and  dates,  and  fifty  things  in  which  I 
can  give  her  little  help ;  but  what  I  do  know  about  my  works  I 
have  sent  her.  Only,  as,  except  that  I  believe  her  to  live  in  Phila- 
delphia, I  really  am  as  ignorant  of  her  address  as  I  am  of  the  year 
which  brought  forth  the  first  volume  of  "  Our  Village,"  I  am  com- 
pelled to  go  to  you  for  help  in  forwarding  my  reply. 

Ever,  my  dear  Mr.  Fields,  most  gratefully  and  faithfully  yours, 

M.  R.  MlTFORD. 

Is  not  Louis  Napoleon  the  most  graceful  of  our  European  chiefs  ? 
I  have  always  had  a  weakness  for  the  Emperor,  and  am  delighted  to 
find  the  heir  of  his  name  turning  out  so  well. 


MISS  MITFORD.  287 


1851. 

February  10,1851. 

I  cannot  tell  you,  my  dear  Mr.  Fields,  how  much  I  thank  you  for 
your  most  kind  letter  and  parcel,  which,  after  sending  three  or  four 

emissaries  all  over  London  to  seek,  (Mr. having  ignored  the 

matter  to  my  first  messenger,)  was  at  last  sent  to  me  by  the  Great 

Western  Railway,  —  I  suspect  by  the  aforesaid  Mr. ,  because, 

although  the  name  of  the  London  bookseller  was  dashed  out,  a  loruj- 

tailed  letter  was  left  just  where  the  "  p  "  would  come  in ,  and 

as  neither  Bonn's  nor  Whittaker's  name  boasts  such  a  grace,  I  sus- 
pect that,  in  spite  of  his  assurance,  the  packet  was  in  the  Strand,  and 
neither  in  Ave  Maria  Lane  nor  in  Henrietta  Street,  to  both  houses 
I  sent.  Thank  you  a  thousand  times  for  all  your  kindness.  The 
orations  are  very  striking.  But  I  was  delighted  with  Dr.  Holmes's 
poems  for  their  individuality.  How  charming  a  person  he  must  be! 
And  how  truly  the  portrait  represents  the  mind,  the  lofty  brow  full  of 
thought,  and  the  wrinkle  of  humor  in  the  eye  !  (Between  ourselves, 
I  always  have  a  little  doubt  of  genius  where  there  is  no  humor ; 
certainly  in  the  very  highest  poetry  the  two  go  together,  —  Scott, 
Shakespeare,  Fletcher,  Burns.)  Another  charming  thing  in  Dr. 
Holmes  is,  that  every  succeeding  poem  is  better  than  the  last.  Is 
he  a  widower,  or  a  bachelor,  or  a  married  man  ?  At  all  events, 
he  is  a  true  poet,  and  1  like  him  all  the  better  for  being  a  physician,  — 
the  one  truly  noble  profession.  There  are  noble  men  in  all  profes- 
sions, but  in  medicine  only  are  the  great  mass,  almost  the  whole, 
generous,  liberal,  self-denying,  living  to  advance  science  and  to  help 
mankind.  If  I  had  been  a  man  I  should  certainly  have  followed 
that  profession.  I  rejoice  to  hear  of  another  Romance  by  the 
author  of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter."  That  is  a  real  work  of  genius.  Have 
you  seen  "  Alton  Locke  "  ?  No  novel  has  made  so  much  noise  for  a 
long  time  ;  but  it  is,  like  "  The  Saint's  Tragedy,"  inconclusive.  Be- 
tween ourselves,  I  suspect  that  the  latter  part  was  written  with  the 
fear  of  the  Bishop  before  his  eyes  (the  author,  Mr.  Kingsley,  is  a 
e'ergyman  of  the  Church  of  England),  which  makes  the  one  volume 
almost  a  contradiction  of  the  others.  Mrs.  Browning  is  still  at 
Florence,  where  she  sees  scarcely  any  English,  a  few  Italians,  and 
many  Americans. 

Ever  most  gratefully  yours, 

M.  R.  M. 

(No  date.) 
Dear  Mr.  Fields  :  I  sent  you  a  pacKet  last  week,  but  I  have  just 
received  your  two  charming  books,  and  I  cannot  suffer  a  post  to 


288  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

pass  without  thanking  you  for  them.  Mr.  Whittier's  volume  is  quite 
what  might  have  been  expected  from  the  greatest  of  Quaker  writers, 
the  worthy  compeer  of  Longfellow,  and  will  give  me  other  extracts 
to  go  with  "  From  Massachusetts  to  Virginia "  and  "  Cassandra 
Southwick  "  in  my  own  book,  where  one  of  my  pleasures  will  be 
trying  to  do  justice  to  American  poetry,  and  Dr.  Holmes's  fine 
"Astrsea."  We  have  nothing  like  that  nowadays  in  England. 
Nobody  writes  now  in  the  glorious  resonant  metre  of  Dryden,  and 
very  few  ever  did  write  as  Dr.  Holmes  does.  I  see  there  is  another 
volume  of  his  poetry,  but  the  name  was  new  to  me.  How  much  I 
owe  to  you,  my  dear  Mr.  Fields  !  That  great  romance,  "  The  Scar- 
let Letter,"  and  these  fine  poets,  —  for  true  poetry,  not  at  all  imitative, 
is  rare  in  England,  common  as  elegant  imitative  verse  may  be,  — 
and  that  charming  edition  of  Robert  Browning.  Shall  you  republish 
his  wife's  new  edition  ?  I  cannot  tell  you  how  much  I  thank  you. 
I  read  an  extract  from  the  Times,  containing  a  report  of  Lord  Car- 
lisle's lecture  on  America,  chiefly  because  he  and  Dr.  Holmes  say 
the  same  thing  touching  the  slavish  regard  to  opinion  which  pre- 
vails in  America.  Lord  Carlisle  is  by  many  degrees  the  most  ac- 
complished of  our  nobles.  Another  accomplished  and  cultivated 
nobleman,  a  friend  of  my  own,  we  have  just  lost,  —  Lord  Nugent,  — - 
liberal,  too,  against  the  views  of  his  family. 

You  must  make  my  earnest  and  very  sincere  congratulations  to 
your  friend.  In  publishing  Gray,  he  shows  the  refinement  of  taste 
to  be  expected  in  your  companion.  I  went  over  all  his  haunts  two 
years  ago,  and  have  commemorated  them  in  the  book  you  will  see 
by  and  by,  —  the  book  that  is  to  be,  —  and  there  I  have  put  on 
record  the  bride-cake,  and  the  finding  by  you  on  my  table  your 
own  edition  of  Motherwell.  You  are  not  angry,  are  you  ?  If  your 
father  and  mother  in  law  ever  come  again  to  England,  I  shall  re- 
joice to  see  them,  and  shall  be  sure  to  do  so,  if  they  will  drop  me  a 
line.     God  bless  you,  dear  Mr.  Fields. 

Ever  faithfully  and  gratefully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Three-Mile  Cross,  July  20, 1851. 
You  will  have  thought  me  most  ungrateful,  dear  Mr.  Fields,  in 
being  so  long  your  debtor  for  a  most  kind  and  charming  letter;  but 
first  I  waited  for  the  "  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  and  then  when 
it  arrived,  only  a  week  ago,  I  waited  to  read  it  a  second  time.  At 
6ixty-four  life  gets  too  short  to  allow  us  to  read  every  book  once 
and  again;  but  it  is  not  so  with  Mr.  Hawthorne's.  The  first  time 
one  sketches  them  (to  borrow  Dr.  Holmes's  excellent  word),  and 


MISS  MITFORD.  289 


cannot  put  them  down  for  the  vivid  interest ;  the  next,  one  lingers 
over  the  beauty  with  a  calmer  enjoyment.  Very  beautiful  this 
book  is  !  I  thank  you  for  it  again  and  again.  The  legendary  part 
is  all  the  better  for  being  vague  and  dim  and  shadowy,  all  pervading, 
yet  never  tangible  ;  and  the  living  people  have  a  charm  about  them 
which  is  as  lifelike  and  real  as  the  legendary  folks  are  ghostly  and 
remote.  Phcebe,  for  instance,  is  a  creation  which,  not  to  speak  it 
profanely,  is  almost  Shakespearian.  I  know  no  modern  heroine  to 
compare  with  her,  except  it  be  Eugene  Sue's  Rigolette,  who  shines 
forth  amidst  the  iniquities  of  "  Les  Mysteres  de  Paris  "  like  some 
rich,  bright,  fresh  cottage  rose  thrown  by  evil  chance  upon  a  dung- 
hill. Tell  me,  please,  about  Mr.  Hawthorne,  as  you  were  so  good  as 
to  do  about  that  charming  person,  Dr.  Holmes.  Is  he  young?  I 
think  he  is,  and  I  hope  so  for  the  sake  of  books  to  come.  And  is 
he  of  any  profession  ?  Does  he  depend  altogether  upon  literature, 
as  too  many  writers  do  here  ?  At  all  events,  he  is  one  of  the 
glories  of  your  most  glorious  part  of  great  America.  Tell  me,  too, 
what  is  become  of  Mr.  Cooper,  that  other  great  novelist?  I  think 
I  heard  from  you,  or  from  some  other  Transatlantic  friend,  that  he 
was  less  genial  and  less  beloved  than  sc  many  other  of  your  notabilities 
have  been.  Indeed,  one  sees  that  in  many  of  his  recent  works ;  but 
I  have  been  reading  many  of  his  earlier  books  again,  with  ever-in- 
creased admiration,  especially  I  should  say  "  The  Pioneers  "  ;  and  one 
cannot  help  hoping  that  the  mind  that  has  given  so  much  pleasure 
to  so  many  readers  will  adjust  itself  so  as  to  admit  of  its  own 
happiness,  —  for  very  clearly  the  discomfort  was  his  own  fault,  aad 
he  is  too  clever  a  person  for  one  not  to  wish  him  well. 

I  think  that  the  most  distinguished  of  our  own  young  writers  are, 
the  one  a  dear  friend  of  mine,  John  Ruskin ;  the  other,  one  who 
will  shortly  be  so  near  a  neighbor  that  we  must  know  each  other. 
It  is  quite  wonderful  that  we  don't  now,  for  we  are  only  twelve 
miles  apart,  and  have  scores  of  friends  in  common.  This  last  is  the 
Rev.  Charles  Kingsley,  author  of  "  Alton  Locke  "  and  "  Yeast "  and 
u  The  Saint's  Tragedy."  All  these  books  are  full  of  world-wide 
truths,  and  yet,  taken  as  a  whole,  they  are  unsatisfactory  and  incon- 
clusive, knocking  down  without  building  up.  Perhaps  that  is  the 
fault  of  the  social  system  that  he  lays  bare,  perhaps  of  the  organi- 
zation of  the  man,  perhaps  a  little  of  both.  You  will  have  heard 
probably  that  he,  with  other  benevolent  persons,  established  a  sort 
of  socialist  community  (Christian  socialism)  for  journeymen  tailors, 
he  himself  being  their  chaplain.  The  evil  was  very  great,  for  of 
twenty-one  thousand  of  that  class  in  London,  fifteen  thousand  were 
13  s 


2go  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


ill-paid  and  only  half-employed.  For  a  while,  that  is,  as  long  as  the 
subscription  lasted,  all  went  well;  but  I  fear  this  week  that  the 
money  has  come  to  an  end,  and  so  very  likely  will  the  experiment. 
Have  you  republished  "  Alton  Locke "  in  America  ?  It  has  one 
character,  an  old  Scotchman,  equal  to  anything  in  Scott.  The 
writer  is  still  quite  a  young  man,  but  out  of  health.     I  have  heard 

(but  this  is  between  ourselves)  that 's  brain  is  suffering,  —  the 

terrible  malady  by  which  so  many  of  our  great  mental  laborers 
(Scott  and  Southey,  above  all)   have  fallen.     Dr.  Buckland  is  now 

dying  of  it.     I  am  afraid may  be  so  lost  to  the  world  and  his 

friends,  not  merely  because  his  health  is  going,  but  because  certain 
peculiarities  have  come  to  my  knowledge  which  look  like  it.  A 
brother  clergyman  saw  him  the  other  day,  upon  a  common  near 
his  own  house,  spouting,  singing,  and  reciting  verse  at  the  top  of  his 
voice  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Upon  inquiring  what  was 
the  matter,  the  poet  said  that  he  never  went  to  bed  till  two  or 
three  o'clock,  and  frequently  went  out  in  that  way  to  exercise 
liis  lungs.  My  informant,  an  orderly  person  of  a  very  different 
stamp,  set  him  down  for  mad  at  once;  but  he  is  much  beloved 
among  his  parishioners,  and  if  the  escapade  above  mentioned  do 
not  indicate  disease  of  the  brain,  I  can  only  say  it  would  be  good  for 
the  country  if  we  had  more  madmen  of  the  same  sort.  As  to  John 
Ruskin,  I  would  not  answer  for  quiet  people  not  taking  him  for 
crazy  too.  He  is  an  enthusiast  in  art,  often  right,  often  wrong,  — 
"  in  the  right  very  stark,  in  the  wrong  very  sturdy,"  —  bigoted, 
perverse,  provoking,  as  ever  man  was ;  but  good  and  kind  and 
charming  beyond  the  common  lot  of  mortals.  There  are  some 
pages  of  his  prose  that  seem  to  me  more  eloquent  than  anything 
out  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  I  should  think  a  selection  of  his  works 
would  answer  to  reprint.  Their  sale  here  is  something  wonderful, 
considering  their  dearness,  in  this  age  of  cheap  literature,  and  the 
want  of  attraction  in  the  subject,  although  the  illustrations  of  the 
"  Stones  of  Venice,"  executed  by  himself  from  his  own  drawings,  are 
almost  as  exquisite  as  the  writings.  By  the  way,  he  does  not  say 
what  I  heard  the  other  day  from  another  friend,  just  returned  from 
the  city  of  the  sea,  that  Taglioni  has  purchased  four  of  the  finest 
palaces,  and  is  restoring  them  with  great  taste,  by  way  of  invest- 
ment, intending  to  let  them  to  Russian  and  English  noblemen. 
She  was  a  very  graceful  dancer  once,  was  Taglioni ;  but  still  it 
rather  depoetizes  the  place,  which  of  all  others  was  richest  in  asso- 
ciations. 
Mrs.  Browning  has  got  as  near  to  England  as  Paris,  and  holds 


MISS  MITFORD.  291 

out  enough  of  hope  of  coming  to  London  to  keep  me  from  visiting 
it  until  I  know  her  decision.  I  have  not  seen  the  great  Exhibition, 
nnd,  unless  she  arrives,  most  probably  shall  not  see  it.  My  lame- 
ness, which  has  now  lasted  five  months,  is  the  reason  I  give  to  my- 
self for  not  going,  chairs  being  only  admitted  for  an  hour  or  two  on 
Saturday  mornings.  But  I  suspect  that  my  curiosity  has  hardly 
reached  the  fever-heat  needful  to  encounter  the  crowd  and  the 
fatigue.  It  is  amusing  to  find  how  people  are  cooling  down  about 
it.  We  always  were  a  nation  of  idolaters,  and  always  had  the 
trick  of  avenging  ourselves  upon  our  poor  idols  for  the  sin  of  our 
own  idolatry.  Many  an  overrated,  and  then  underrated,  poet 
can  bear  witness  to  this.  I  remember  when  my  friend  Mr.  Milnes 
was  called  the  poet,  although  Scott  and  Byron  were  in  their  glory, 
and  Wordsworth  had  written  all  of  his  works  that  will  live.  We 
make  gods  of  wood  and  stone,  and  then  we  knock  them  to  pieces ; 
and  so  figuratively,  if  not  literally,  shall  we  do  by  the  Exhibition. 
Next  month  I  am  going  to  move  to  a  cottage  at  Swallowfield,  — 
so  called,  I  suppose,  because  those  migratory  birds  meet  by  millions 
every  autumn  in  the  park  there,  now  belonging  to  some  friends  of 
mine,  and  still  famous  as  the  place  where  Lord  Clarendon  wrote  his 
history.  That  place  is  still  almost  a  palace ;  mine  an  humble  but 
very  prettily  placed  cottage.  0,  how  proud  and  glad  I  should  be,  if 
ever  I  could  receive  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fields  within  its  walls  for  more 
than  a  poor  hour  !  I  shall  have  tired  you  with  this  long  letter,  but 
you  have  made  me  reckon  you  among  my  friends,  —  ay,  one  of  the 
best  and  kindest,  —  and  must  take  the  consequence. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Swallowfield,  Saturday  Night. 

I  write  you  two  notes  at  once,  my  dear  friend,  whilst  the  recol- 
lection of  your  conversation  is  still  in  my  head  and  the  feeling  of 
your  kindness  warm  on  my  heart.  To  write,  to  thank  you  for  a 
visit  which  has  given  me  so  much  pleasure,  is  an  impulse  not  to  be 
resisted.  Pray  tell  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bennoch  how  delighted  I  am  to 
make  their  acquaintance  and  how  earnestly  I  hope  we  may  meet 
often.     They  are  charming  people. 

Another  motive  that  I  had  for  writing  at  once  is  to  tell  you  that  the 
more  I  think  of  the  title  of  the  forthcoming  book,  the  less  I  like  it ; 
and  I  care  more  for  it,  now  that  you  are  concerned  in  the  matter, 
than  I  did  before.  "  Personal  Reminiscences "  sounds  like  a  bad 
title  for  an  autobiography.  Now  this  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  It  is 
literally  a  book  made  up  of  favorite  scraps  of  poetry  and  prose ;  the 


292  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


bits  of  my  own  writing  are  partly  critical,  and  partly  have  been 
interwoven  to  please  Henry  Chorley  and  give  something  of  novelty, 
and  as  it  were  individuality,  to  a  mere  selection,  to  take  off  the  dry- 
ness and  triteness  of  extracts,  and  give  the  pen  something  to  say 
in  the  work  as  well  as  the  scissors.  Still,  it  is  a  book  founded  on 
other  books,  and  since  it  pleased  Mr.  Bentley  to  object  to  "  Read- 
ings of  Poetry,"  because  he  said  nobody  in  England  bought  poetry, 
why  "  Recollections  of  Books,"  as  suggested  by  Mr.  Bennett,  ap- 
proved by  me,  and  as  I  believed  (till  this  very  day)  adopted  by 
Mr.  Bentley,  seemed  to  meet  exactly  the  truth  of  the  case,  and  to 
be  quite  concession  enough  to  the  exigencies  of  the  trade.  By  the 
other  title  we  exposed  ourselves,  in  my  mind,  to  all  manner  of  dan- 
ger. I  shall  write  this  by  this  same  post  to  Mr.  Bennett,  and  get  the 
announcement  changed,  if  possible  ;  for  it  seems  to  me  a  trick  of  the 
worst  sort.  I  shall  write  a  list  of  the  subjects,  and  I  only  wish  that  I 
had  duplicates,  and  I  would  send  you  the  articles,  for  I  am  most 
uncomfortable  at  the  notion  of  your  being  taken  in  to  purchase  a 
book  that  may,  through  this  misnomer,  lose  its  reputation  in  Eng- 
land ;  for  of  course  it  will  be  attacked  as  an  unworthy  attempt  to 

make  it  pass  for  what  it  is  not 

Now  if  you  dislike  it,  or  if  Mr.  Bentley  keep  that  odious  title,  why, 
give  it  up  at  once.  Don't  pray,  pray  lose  money  by  me.  It  would 
grieve  me  far  more  than  it  would  you.  A  good  many  of  these  are 
about  books  quite  forgotten,  as  the  "Pleader's  Guide  "  (an  exquisite 
pleasantry),  "  Holcroft's  Memoirs,"  and  "  Richardson's  Correspond- 
ence." Much  on  Darley  and  the  Irish  Poets,  unknown  in  England ; 
and  I  think  myself  that  the  book  will  contain,  as  in  the  last  article, 
much  exquisite  poetry  and  curious  prose,  as  in  the  forgotten  murder 
(of  Toole,  the  author's  uncle)  in  the  State  Trials.  But  it  should  be 
called  by  its  right  name,  as  everything  should  in  this  world.  God 
bless  you ! 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

M.  R.  M. 

P.  S.  First  will  come  the  Preface,  then  the  story  of  the  book 
(without  Henry  Chorley's  name  ;  it  is  to  be  dedicated  to  him),  no- 
ticing the  coincidence  of  "  Our  Village  "  having  first  appeared  in  the 
Lady's  Magazine,  and  saying  something  like  what  I  wrote  to  you 
last  night.  I  think  this  will  take  off  the  danger  of  provoking  ap- 
prehension on  one  side  and  disappointment  on  the  other ;  because 
after  all,  although  anecdote  be  not  the  style  of  the  book,  it  does 
contain  some. 

May  I   put  in  the  story  of   Washington's  ghost?  without  youi 


MISS  MITFORD.  293 

name,  of  course ;  it  would  be  very  interesting,  and  I  am  ten  times 
more  desirous  of  making  the  book  as  good  as  I  can,  since  I  have 
reason  to  believe  you  will  be  interested  in  it.  Pray,  forgive  me  for 
having  worried  you  last  night  and  now  again.  I  am  a  terribly 
nervous  person,  and  hate  and  dread  literary  scrapes,  or  indeed  dis- 
putes of  any  sort.  But  I  ought  not  to  have  worried  you.  Just  tell 
me  if  you  think  this  sort  of  preface  will  take  the  sting  from  the 
title,  for  I  dare  say  Mr.  Bentley  won't  change  it. 

Adieu,  dear  friend.  All  peace  and  comfort  to  you  in  your  jour- 
ney ;  amusement  you  are  sure  of.  I  write  also  to  dear  Mr.  Bennett, 
whom  I  fear  I  have  also  worried. 

Ever  most  faithfully  yours, 

M.  R.  M. 

1852. 

January  5. 

Mr.  Bennoch  has  just  had  the  very  great  kindness,  dear  Mr. 
Fields,  to  let  me  know  of  your  safe  arrival  at  Genoa,  and  of  your 
enjoyment  of  your  journey.  Thank  God  for  it  I  We  heard  so 
much  about  commotions  in  the  South  of  France  that  I  had  become 
fidgety  about  you,  the  rather  that  it  is  the  best  who  go,  and  that  I 
for  one  cannot  afford  to  lose  you. 

Now  let  me  thank  you  for  all  your  munificence,  —  that  beautiful 
Longfellow  with  the,  hundred  illustrations,  and  that  other  book  of 
Professor  Longfellow's,  beautiful  in  another  way,  the  "Golden  Le- 
gend." I  hope  I  shall  be  only  one  among  the  multitude  who  think 
this  the  greatest  and  best  thing  he  has  done  yet,  so  racy,  so  full  of 
character,  of  what  the  French  call  local  color,  so,  in  its  best  and 
highest  sense,  original.  Moreover,  I  like  the  happy  ending. 
Then  those  charming  volumes  of  De  Quincey  and  Sprague  and 
Grace  Greenwood.  (Is  that  her  real  name  ?)  And  dear  Mr. 
Hawthorne,  and  the  two  new  poets,  who,  if  also  young  poets, 
will  be  fresh  glories  for  America.  How  can  I  thank  you  enough 
for  all  these  enjoyments  ?  And  you  must  come  back  to  England, 
and  add  to  my  obligations  by  giving  me  as  much  as  you  can  of 
your  company  in  the  merry  month  of  May.  I  have  fallen  in  with 
Mr.  Kingsley,  and  a  most  charming  person  he  is,  certainly  the  least 
like  an  Englishman  of  letters,  and  the  most  like  an  accomplished, 
high-toned  English  gentleman,  that  I  have  ever  met  with.  .  You 
must  know  Mr.  Kingsley.  He  is  very  young  too,  really  young,  for 
it  is  characteristic  of  our  "  young  poets  "  that  they  generally  turn 
out  middle-aged  and  very  often  elderly.     My  book  is  out  at  last, 


294  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


hurried  through  the  press  in  a  fortnight,  —  a  process  which  half  killed 
me,  and  has  left  the  volumes,  no  doubt,  full  of  errata,  —  and  you,  I 
mean  your  house,  have  not  got  it.  I  am  keeping  a  copy  for  you 
personally.  People  say  that  they  like  it.  I  think  you  will,  because  it 
will  remind  you  of  this  pretty  country,  and  of  an  old  Englishwoman 
who  loves  you  well.  Mrs.  Browning  was  delighted  with  your 
visit.  She  is  a  Bonapartiste ;  so  am  I.  1  always  adored  the  Em- 
peror, and  I  think  his  nephew  is  a  great  man,  full  of  ability,  energy, 
and  courage,  who  put  an  end  to  an  untenable  situation  and  got  quit 
of  a  set  of  unrepresenting  representatives.  The  Times  newspaper, 
right  as  it  seems  to  me  about  Kossuth,  is  dangerously  wrong  about 
Louis  Napoleon,  since  it  is  trying  to  stimulate  the  nation  to  a  war 
for  which  Prance  is  more  than  prepared,  is  ready,  and  England  is 
not.  London  might  be  taken  with  far  less  trouble  and  fewer  men 
than  it  took  to  accomplish  the  coup  d'etat.  Ah!  I  suspect  very 
different  politics  will  enclose  this  wee  bit  notie,  if  dear  Mr.  Bennoch 
contrives  to  fold  it  up  in  a  letter  of  his  own ;  but  to  agree  to  differ 
is  part  of  the  privileges  of  friendship ;  besides,  I  think  you  and  I 
generally  agree- 
Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

P.  S.  All  this  time  I  have  not  said  a  word  of  "  The  Wonder 
Book."  Thanks  again  and  again.  Who  was  the  Mr.  Blackstone 
mentioned  in  "  The  Scarlet  Letter"  as  riding  like  a  myth  in  New 
England  History,  and  what  his  arms?  A  grandson  of  Judge 
Blackstone,  a  friend  of  mine,  wishes  to  know. 

(March,  1852.) 
I  can  never  enough  thank  you,  dearest  Mr.  Pields,  for  your  kind 
recollection  of  me  in  such  a  place  as  the  Eternal  City.  But  you 
never  forget  any  whom  you  make  happy  in  your  friendship,  for 
that  is  the  word  ;  and  therefore  here  in  Europe  or  across  the  Atlan- 
tic, you  will   always  remain  ....  Your  anecdote  of  the is 

most  characteristic.  I  am  very  much  afraid  that  he  is  only  a  poet, 
and  although  I  fear  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  deny  that  that 
is  much,  I  think  that  to  be  a  really  great  man  needs  something  more. 
I  am  sure  that  you  would  not  have  sympathized  with  Wordsworth. 
I  do  hope  that  you  will  see  Beranger  when  in  Paris.  He  is  the  one 
man  in  France  (always  excepting  Louis  Napoleon,  to  whom  I  con- 
fess the  interest  that  all  women  feel  in  strength  and  courage)  whom 
I  should  earnestly  desire  to  know  well.  In  the  first  place,  I  think 
him  by  far.  the  greatest  of  living  poets,  the  one  who  unites  most 
tompletely  those  two  rare  things,  impulse  and  finish.     In  the  next> 


MISS  MITFORD.  295 


I  admire  his  admirable  independence  and  consistency,  and  his  gen- 
erous feeling  for  fallen  greatness.  Ah,  what  a  truth  he  told,  when 
he  said  that  Napoleon  was  the  greatest  poet  of  modern  days !  I 
should  like  to  have  the  description  of  Beranger  from  your  lips. 
Mrs.  Browning  ....  has  made  acquaintance  with  Madame  Sand, 
of  whom  her  account  is  most  striking  and  interesting.  But  George 
Rand  is  George  Sand,  and  Beranger  is  Beranger. 

Thank  you,  dear  friend,  for  your  kind  interest  in  my  book.  It 
has  found  far  more  favor  than  I  expected,  and  I  think,  ever  since 
the  week  after  its  publication,  I  have  received  a  dozen  of  letters 
daily  about  it,  from  friends  and  strangers,  —  mostly  strangers,  —  some 
of  very  high  accomplishments,  who  will  certainly  be  friends.  This 
is  encouragement  to  write  again,  and  we  will  have  a  talk  about  it 
when  you  come.  I  should  like  your  advice.  One  thing  is  certain, 
that  this  work  has  succeeded,  and  that  the  people  who  like  it  best 
are  precisely  those  whom  one  wishes  to  like  it  best,  the  lovers  of 
literature.  Amongst  other  things,  I  have  received  countless  volumes 
of  poetry  and  prose,  —  one  little  volume  of  poetry  written  under  the 
name  of  Mary  Maynard,  of  the  greatest  beauty,  with  the  vividness 
and  picturesqueness  of  the  new  school,  combined  with  infinite  cor- 
rectness and  clearness,  that  rarest  of  all  merits  nowadays.  Her 
real  name  I  don't  know,  she  has  only  thought  it  right  to  tell  me 
that  Mary  Maynard  was  not  the  true  appellation  (this  is  between 
ourselves).  Her  own  family  know  nothing  of  the  publication, 
which  seems  to  have  been  suggested  by  her  and  my  friend,  John 
Ruskin.  Of  course,  she  must  have  her  probation,  but  I  know  of  no 
young  writer  so  likely  to  rival  your  new  American  school.  I  sent 
your  gift-books  of  Hawthorne,  yesterday,  to  the  Walters  of  Bear- 
wood, who  had  never  heard  of  them !  Tell  him  that  I  have  had  the 
honor  of  poking  him  into  the  den  of  the  Times,  the  only  civilized 
place  in  England  where  they  were  barbarous  enough  not  to  be 
acquainted  with  "  The  Scarlet  Letter."  I  wonder  what  they  '11 
think  of  it.  It  will  make  them  stare.  They  come  to  see  me, 
for  it  is  full  two  months  since  I  have  been  in  the  pony-chaise. 
I  was  low,  if  you  remember,  when  you  were  here,  but  thought 
myself  getting  better,  was  getting  better.  About  Christmas,  ver}r 
damp  weather  came  on,  or  rather  very  wei  weather,  and  the 
damp  seized  my  knee  and  ankles  and  brought  back  such  an 
attack  of  rheumatism  that  I  cannot  stand  upright,  walk  quite 
double,  and  am  often  obliged  to  be  lifted  from  step  to  step  up  stairs. 
My  medical  adviser  (a  very  clever  man)  says  that  I  shall  get  much 
better  when  warm  weather  comes,  but  for  weeks  and  weeks  we 


296  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

have  had  east-winds  and  frost.  No  violets,  no  primroses,  no  token 
of  spring.  A  little  flock  of  ewes  and  lambs,  with  a  pretty  boy  com- 
monly holding  a  lamb  in  his  arms,  who  drives  his  flock  to  water  at 
the  pond  opposite  my  window,  is  the  only  thing  that  gives  token 
of  the  season.  I  am  quite  mortified  at  this  on  your  account,  for 
April,  in  general  a  month  of  great  beauty  here,  will  be  as  desolate 
as  winter.  Nevertheless  you  must  come  and  see  me,  you  and  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Bennoch,  and  perhaps  you  can  continue  to  stay  a  day  or 
two,  or  to  come  more  than  once.  I  want  to  see  as  much  of  you  as 
I  can,  and  I  must  change  much,  if  I  be  in  any  condition  to  go  to 
London,  even  upon  the  only  condition  on  which  I  ever  do  go,  that 
is,  into  lodgings,  for  I  never  stay  anywhere  ;  and  if  I  were  to  go, 
even  to  one  dear  and  warm-hearted  friend,  I  should  affront  the  very 
many  other  friends  whose  invitations  I  have  refused  for  so  many 
years.  I  hope  to  get  at  Mr.  Kingsley ;  but  I  have  seen  little  of  him 
this  winter.  We  are  five  miles  asunder ;  his  wife  has  been  ill ;  and 
my  fear  of  an  open  carriage,  or  rather  the  medical  injunction  not  to 
enter  one,  has  been  a  most  insuperable  objection.  We  are,  as  we 
both  said,  summer  neighbors.  However,  I  will  try  that  you  should 
see  him.  He  is  well  worth  knowing.  Thank  you  about  Mr.  Black- 
stone.  He  is  worth  knowing  too,  in  a  different  way,  a  very  learned 
and  very  clever  man  (you  will  find  half  Dr.  Arnold's  letters  ad- 
dressed to  him),  as  full  of  crotchets  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat,  fond  of 
disputing  and  contradicting,  a  clergyman  living  in  the  house  where 
Mrs.  Trollope  was  raised,  and  very  kind  after  his  own  fashion.  One 
thing  that  I  should  especially  like  would  be  that  you  should  see 
your  first  nightingale  amongst  our  woody  lanes.     To  be  sure,  these 

winds  can  never  last  till  then.     Mr. is  coming  here  on  Sunday. 

He  always  brings  rain  or  snow,  and  that  will  change  the  weather. 
You  are  a  person  who  ought  to  bring  sunshine,  and  I  suppose  you 
do  more  than  metaphorically ;  for  I  remember  that  both  times  I 
have  had  the  happiness  to  see  you  —  a  summer  day  and  a  winter 
day  —  were  glorious.  Heaven  bless  you,  dear  friend  !  May  all  the 
pleasure  ....  return  upon  your  own  head !  Even  my  little  world  is 
charmed  at  the  prospect  of  seeing  you  again.  If  you  come  to  Read- 
ing by  the  Great  Western  you  could  return  later  and  make  a  longer 
day,  and  yet  be  no  longer  from  home. 

Ever  faithfully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Swallowfield,  April  27, 1852. 
How  can  I  thank  you  half  enough,  dearest  Mr.  Fields,  for  all  your 
goodness !     To  write  to  me  the  very  day  after  reaching  Paris,  to 
think  of  me  so  kindly!     It  it  what  I  never  can  repay.     I  write  now 


MISS  MITFORD.  297 

not  to  trouble  you  for  another  letter,  but  to  remind  you  that,  as 
soon  as  possible  after  your  return  to  England,  I  hope  to  see  you 
and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bennoch  here.  Heaven  grant  the  spring  may 
come  to  meet  you !  At  present  I  am  writing  in  an  east-wind, 
which  has  continued  two  months  and  gives  no  sign  of  cessation. 
Professor  Airy  says  it  will  continue  five  weeks  longer.  Not  a  drop 
of  rain  has  fallen  in  all  that  time.  We  have  frosts  every  night,  the 
hedges  are  as  bare  as  at  Christmas,  flowers  forget  to  blow,  or  if  they 
put  forth  miserable,  infrequent,  reluctant  blossoms,  have  no  heart, 
and  I  have  only  once  heard  the  nightingale  in  this  place  where 
they  abound,  and  not  yet  seen  a  swallow  in  the  spot  which  takes 
name  from  their  gatherings.  It  follows,  of  course,  that  the  rheuma- 
tism, covered  by  a  glut  of  wet  weather,  just  upon  the  coming  in  of 
the  new  year,  is  fifty  times  increased  by  the  bitter  season,  —  a  season 
which  has  no  parallel  in  my  recollection.  I  can  hardly  sit  down 
when  standing,  or  rise  from  my  chair  without  assistance,  walk  quite 
double,  and  am  lifted  up  stairs  step  by  step  by  my  man-servant.  I 
thought,  two  years  ago,  I  could  walk  fifteen  or  sixteen  miles  a  day ! 
0,  I  was  too  proud  of  my  activity !  I  am  sure  we  are  smitten  in 
our  vanities.  However,  you  will  bring  the  summer,  which  is,  they 
say,  to  do  me  good ;  and  even  if  that  should  fail,  it  will  do  me  some 
good  to  see  you,  that  is  quite  certain.  Thank  you  for  telling  me 
about  the  G-alignani,  and  about  the  kind  American  reception  of  my 
book  ;  some  one  sent  me  a  New  York  paper  (the  Tribune,  I  think), 
full  of  kindness,  and  I  do  assure  you  that  to  be  so  heartily  greeted 
by  my  kinsmen  across  the  Atlantic  is  very  precious  to  me.  From 
the  first  American  has  there  come  nothing  but  good-will.  How- 
ever, the  general  kindness  here  has  taken  me  quite  by  surprise. 
The  only  fault  found  was  with  the  title,  which,  as  you  know,  was 
no  doing  of  mine ;  and  the  number  of  private  letters,  books,  verses, 
(commendatory  verses,  as  the  old  poets  have  it),  and  tributes  of  all 
sorts,  and  from  all  manner  of  persons,  that  I  receive  every  day  is 
something  quite  astonishing. 

Our  great  portrait-painter,  John  Lucas,  certainly  the  first  painter 
of  female  portraits  now  alive,  has  been  down  here  to  take  a  por- 
trait for  engraving.  He  has  been  most  successful.  It  is  looking 
better,  I  suppose,  than  I  ever  do  look ;  but  not  better  than  under 
certain  circumstances  —  listening  to  a  favorite  friend,  for  example  — 
I  perhaps  might  look.  The  picture  is  to  go  to-morrow  into  the 
engraver's  hands,  and  I  hope  the  print  will  be  completed  before 
your  departure ;  also  they  are  engraving,  or  are  about  to  engrave,  a 
miniature  taken  of  me  when  I  was  a  little  girl  between  three  and 
13* 


298  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

four  years  old.  They  are  to  be  placed  side  by  side,  the  young  child 
and  the  old  withered  woman,  —  a  skull  and  cross-bones  could  hardly 
be  a  more  significant  memento  morif  I  have  lost  my  near  neighbor 
and  most  accomplished  friend,  Sir  Henry  Russell,  and  many  other 
friends,  for  Death  has  been  very  busy  this  winter,  and  Mr.  Ware  is 
gone  !  He  had  sent  me  his  "  Zenobia,"  "  from  the  author,"  and  for 
that  very  reason,  I  suppose,  some  one  had  stolen  it ;  but  I  had  re- 
placed both  that  and  the  letters  from  Rome,  and  sent  them  to  Mr. 
Kingsley  as  models  for  his  "  Hypatia."  He  has  them  still.  He  had 
never  heard  of  them  till  I  named  them  to  him.  They  seem  to  me 
very  fine  and  classical,  just  like  the  best  translations  from  some 
great  Latin  writer.  And  I  have  been  most  struck  with  Edgar  Poe, 
who  has  been  republished,  prose  and  poetry,  in  a  shilling  volume 
called  "  Readable  Books."  What  a  deplorable  history  it  was  !  — ■  I 
mean  his  own,  —  the  most  unredeemed  vice  that  I  have  met  with  in 
the  annals  of  genius.  But  he  was  a  very  remarkable  writer,  and  must 
have  a  niche  if  I  write  again ;  so  must  your  two  poets,  Stoddard 
and  Taylor.  I  am  very  sorry  you  missed  Mrs.  Trollope ;  she  is  a 
most  remarkable  woman,  and  you  would  have  liked  her,  I  am  sure, 
for  her  warm  heart  and  her  many  accomplishments.  I  had  a  sure 
way  to  Beranger,  one  of  my  dear  friends  being  a  dear  friend  of  his ; 
but  on  inquiring  for  him  last  week,  that  friend  also  is  gone  to 
heaven.  Do  pick  up  for  me  all  you  can  about  Louis  Napoleon,  my 
one  real  abiding  enthusiasm,  —  the  enthusiasm  of  my  whole  life,  — 
for  it  began  with  the  Emperor  and  has  passed  quite  undiminished 
to  the  present  great,  bold,  and  able  ruler  of  Prance.  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing shares  it,  I  think  ;  only  she  calls  herself  cool,  which  I  don't ;  and 
another  still  more  remarkable  co-religionist  in  the  L.  N.  faith  is  old 
Lady  Shirley  (of  Alderley),  the  writer  of  that  most  interesting 
letter  to  Gibbon,  dated  1792,  published  by  her  father,  .Lord  Shef- 
■field,  in  his  edition  of  the  great  historian's  posthumous  works. 
'She  is  eighty-two  now,  and  as  active  and  vigorous  in  body  and 
imind,  as  sixty  years  ago. 

Make  my  most  affectionate  love  to  my  friend  in  the  Avenue  des 
Champs  Elysees,  and  believe  me  ever,  my  dear  Mr.  Pields,  most 
gratefully  and  affectionately  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

(No  date. ) 

Ah,  my  dearest  Mr.  Fields,  how  inimitably  good  and  kind  you 
are  to  me !  Your  account  of  Rachel  is  most  delightful,  the  rather 
that  it  confirms  a  preconceived  notion  which  two  of  my  friends  had 
taken  pains  to  change.     Henry  Chorley,  not  only  by  his  own  opin* 


MISS  MITFORD.  299 


ion,  but  by  that  of  Scribe,  who  told  him  that  there  was  no  compari- 
son between  her  and  Viardot.     Now  if  Viardot,  even  in  that  one 
famous   part  of  Fides,  excels  Rachel,  she  must  be  much  the  finer 
actress,  having  the   horrible   drawback  of  the  music  to  get  over. 
My  other   friend  told  me  a  story  of  her,  in  the  modern  play  of 
Virginie  ;  she  declared  that  when  in  her  father's  arms  she  pointed  to 
the  butcher's  knife,  telling  him  what  to  do,  and  completely  reversing 
that  loveliest  story  ;  but  I  hold  to  your  version  of  her  genius,  even 
admitting  that  she  did  commit  the  Virginie  iniquity,  which  would 
be  intensely  characteristic  of  her  calling,  —  all  actors  and  actresses 
having  a  desire  to  play  the  whole  play  themselves,  speaking  every 
speech,  producing  every  effect  in  their  own  person.     No  doubt  she 
is  a  great  actress,  and  still  more  assuredly  is  Louis  Napoleon  a  great 
man,  a  man  of  genius,  which  includes  in  my  mind  both  sensibility 
and  charm.     There  are  little  bits  of  his  writing  from   Ham,  one 
where  he  speaks  of  "  le  repos  de  ma  prison,"  another  long  and  most 
eloquent  passage  on  exile,  which  ends  (I  forget  the  exact  words) 
with  a  sentiment  full  of  truth  and  sensibility.     He  is  speaking  of 
the  treatment  shown  to  an  exile  in  a  foreign  land,  of  the  mistiness 
and  coldness  of  some,  of  the  blandness  and  smoothness  of  others, 
and  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  He  must  be  a  man  of  ten  thousand  who 
behaves  to  an  exile  just  as  he  would  behave  to  another  person."     If 
I  could  trust  you  to  perform  a  commission  for  me,  and  let  me  pay 
you  the  money  you  spent  upon  it,  I  would  ask  you  to  bring  me  a 
cheap  but  comprehensive  life  of  him,  with  his  works  and  speeches, 
and  a  portrait  as  like  him  as  possible.     I  asked  an  English  friend  to 
do  this  for  me,  and  fancy  his  sending  me  a  book  dated  on  the  out- 
side 1847  !  ! !  !     Did  I  ever  tell  you  a  pretty  story  of  him,  when  he 
was  in  England  after  Strasburg  and  before  Boulogne,  and  which  I 
know  to  be  true  ?     He  spent  a  twelvemonth  at  Leamington,  living 
in  the  quietest  manner.     One  of  the  principal  persons  there  is  Mr. 
Hampden,  a  descendant  of  John  Hampden,  and  the  elder  brother  of 
the  Bishop.     Mr.  Hampden,  himself  a  very  liberal  and  accomplished 
man,  made  a  point  of  showing  every  attention  in  his  power  to  the 
Prince,  and  they  soon  became  very  intimate.     There  was  in  the 
town  an  old  officer  of  the  Emperor's  Polish  Legion  who,  compelled 
to  leave  France  after  Waterloo,  had  taken  refuge  in  England,  and, 
having  the   national   talent  for  languages,  maintained   himself  by 
teaching  French,  Italian,  and  German  in  different  families.     The  old 
exile  and  the  young  one  found  each  other  out,  and  the  language 
master  was  soon  an  habitual  guest  at  the  Prince's  table,  and  treated 
by  him  with  the  most  affectionate  attention.     At  last  Louis  Napo 


300  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

leon  wearied  of  a  country  town  and  repaired  to  London ;  but 
before  he  went  he  called  on  Mr.  Hampden  to  take  leave.  After 
warm  thanks  for  all  the  pleasure  he  had  experienced  in  his  society, 
he  said :  "  I  am  about  to  prove  to  you  my  entire  reliance  upon  your 
unfailing  kindness  by  leaving  you  a  legacy.  I  want  to  ask  you  to 
transfer  to  my  poor  old  friend  the  goodness  you  have  lavished  upon 
me.  His  health  is  failing,  his  means  are  small.  Will  you  call  upon 
him  sometimes?  and  will  you  see  that  those  lodging-house  people 
do  not  neglect  him  ?  and  will  you,  above  all,  do  for  him  what  he 
will  not  do  for  himself,  draw  upon  me  for  what  may  be  wanting  for 
his  needs  or  for  his  comforts  ?  "  Mr.  Hampden  promised.  The 
prophecy  proved  true  ;  the  poor  old  man  grew  worse  and  worse,  and 
finally  died.  Mr.  Hampden,  as  he  had  promised,  replaced  the 
Prince  in  his  kind  attentions  to  his  old  friend,  and  finally  defrayed 
the  charges  of  his  illnes?  and  of  his  funeral.  "  I  would  willingly 
have  paid  them  myself,"  ^aid  he,  "  but  I  knew  that  that  would  have 
offended  and  grieved  the  Prince,  so  I  honestly  divided  the  expenses 
with  him,  and  I  found  that  full  provision  had  been  made  at  his 
banker's  to  answer  my  dr?.fts  to  a  much  larger  amount."  "  Now  I 
have  full  faith  in  such  a  nature.  Let  me  add  that  he  never  forgot 
Mr.  Hampden's  kindness,  sending  him  his  different  brochures  and 
the  kindest  messages,  both  from  Ham  and  the  Elysde.  If  one  did 
not  admire  Louis  Napoleon,  I  should  like  to  know  upon  whom  one 
could,  as  a  public  man,  fix  one's  admiration  !  Just  look  at  our 
English  statesmen !  And  see  the  state  to  which  self-government 
brings  everything  !  Look  at  London  with  all  its  sanitary  questions 
just  in  the  same  state  as  ten  years  ago ;  look  at  all  our  acts  of  Par- 
liament, one  half  of  a  session  passed  in  amending  the  mismanage- 
ment of  the  other.  For  my  own  part,  I  really  believe  that  there  is 
nothing  like  one  mind,  one  wise  and  good  ruler ;  and  I  verily  believe 
that  the  President  of  France  is  that  man.  My  only  doubt  being 
whether  the  people  are  worthy  of  him,  fickle  as  they  are,  like  all 
great  masses,  —  the  French  people,  in  particular.  By  the  way,  if  a 
most  vilely  translated  book,  called  the  "  Prisoner  of  Ham,"  be  extant 
in  French,  I  should  like  to  possess  it.  The  account  of  the  escape 
looks  true,  and  is  most  interesting. 

I  have  been  exceedingly  struck,  since  I  last  wrote  to  70U,  by  some 
extracts  from  Edgar  Poe's  writings ;  I  mean  a  book  called  "  The 
Readable  Library,"  composed  of  selections  from  his  works,  prose 
and  verse.  The  famous  ones  are,  I  find,  The  Maelstrom  and  The 
Raven ;  without  denying  their  high  merits,  I  prefer  that  fine  poem 
on  The  Bells,  quite  as  fine  as  Schiller's,  and  those  remarkable  bit* 
of  stories  on  circumstantial  evidence. 


MISS  MITFORD.  301 


I  am  lower,  dear  friend,  than  ever,  and  what  is  worse,  in  sup- 
porting myself  on  my  hand  I  have  strained  my  right  side  and  can 
hardly  turn  in  bed.  But  if  we  cannot  walk  round  Swallowfield, 
we  can  drive,  and  the  very  sight  of  you  will  do  me  good.  If  Mr. 
Bentley  send  me  only  one  copy  of  that  engraving,  it  shall  be  for 
you.  You  know  I  have  a  copy  for  you  of  the  book.  There  are  no 
words  to  tell  the  letters  and  books  I  receive  about  it,  so  I  suppose 
it  is  popular.  I  have  lost,  as  you  know,  my  most  accomplished  and 
admirable  neighbor,  Sir  Henry  Russell,  the  worthy  successor  of  the 
great  Lord  Clarendon.  His  eldest  daughter  is  my  favorite  young 
friend,  a  most  lovely  creature,  the  ideal  of  a  poet.  I  hope  you  will 
see  Beranger.     Heaven  bless  you ! 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Saturday  Night. 

Ah,  my  very  dear  friend,  how  can  I  ever  thank  you  ?  But  I  don't 
want  to  thank  you.  There  are  some  persons  (very  few,  though;  to 
whom  it  is  a  happiness  to  be  indebted,  and  you  are  one  of  them. 
The  books  and  the  busts  are  arrived.  Poor  dear  Louis  Napoleon  with 
his  head  off —  Heaven  avert  the  omen  !  Of  course  that  head  can 
be  replaced,  I  mean  stuck  on  again  upon  its  proper  shoulders.  Be- 
ranger is  a  beautiful  old  man,  just  what  one  fancies  him  and  loves 
to  fancy  him.  I  hope  you  saw  him.  To  my  mind,  he  is  the  very 
greatest  poet  now  alive,  perhaps  the  greatest  man,  the  truest  and 
best  type  of  perfect  independence.  Thanks  a  thousand  and  a 
thousand  times  for  those  charming  busts  and  for  the  books.  Mrs. 
Browning  had  mentioned  to  me  Mr.  Read.  If  I  live  to  write  an- 
other book,  I  shall  put  him  and  Mr.  Taylor  and  Mr.  Stoddard  to- 
gether, and  try  to  do  justice  to  Poe.  I  have  a  good  right  to  love 
America  and  the  Americans.  My  Mr.  Lucas  tells  me  to  go,  and 
Says  he  has  a  mind  to  go.  I  want  you  to  know  John  Lucas,  not 
only  the  finest  portrait-painter,  but  about  the  very  finest  mind  that 
I  know  in  the  world.  He  might  be  ....  for  talent  and  manner 
and  heart ;  and,  if  you  like,  you  shall,  when  I  am  dead,  have  the  por- 
trait he  has  just  taken  of  me.  I  make  the  reserve,  instead  of  giv- 
ing it  to  you  now,  because  it  is  possible  that  he  might  wish  (I  know 
he  does)  to  paint  one  for  himself,  and  if  I  be  dead  before  sitting  to 
Mm  again,  the  present  one  would  serve  him  to  copy.  Mr.  Bentley 
wanted  to  purchase  it,  and  many  have  wanted  it,  but  it  shall  be 
for  you. 

Now,  my  very  dear  friend,  I  am  afraid  that  Mr. has  said  or 

done  something  that  would  make  you  rather  come  here  alone.  His 
last  letter  to  me,  after  a  month's  silence,  was  odd.     There  was  no 


302  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

fixing  upon  line  or  word;  still  it  was  not  like  his  other  letters,  audi 

suppose  the    air  of is  not  genial,  and  yet  dear  Mr.  Bennoch 

breathes  it  often  !  You  must  know  that  I  never  could  have  meant 
for  one  instant  to  impose  him  upon  you  as  a  companion.  Only  in 
the  autumn  there  had  been  a  talk  of  his  joining  your  party.     He 

knows  Mr.  Bennoch He  has  been  very  kind  and  attentive 

to  me,  and  is.  I  verily  believe,  an  excellent  and  true-hearted  person ; 
and  so  I  was  willing  that,  if  all  fell  out  well,  he  should  have  the 
pleasure  of  your  society  here,  —  the  rather  that  I  am  sometimes  so 
poorly,  and  always  so  helpless  now,  that  one  who  knows  the  place 
might  be  of  use.  But  to  think  that  for  one  moment  I  would  make 
your  time  or  your  wishes  bend  to  his  is  out  of  the  question.  Come 
at  your  own  time,  as  soon  and  as  often  as  you  can.  I  should  say 
this  to  any  one  going  away  three  thousand  miles  off,  much  more  to 
you,  and  forgive  my  having  even  hinted  at  his  coming  too.  I  only 
did  it  thinking  it  might  fix  you  and  suit  you.  In  this  view  I 
wrote  to  him  yesterday,  to  tell  him  that  on  Wednesday  next  there 
would  be  a  cricket-match  at  Bramshill,  one  of  the  finest  old  man- 
sions in  England,  a  Tudor  Manor  House,  altered  by  Inigo  Jones, 
and  formerly  the  residence  of  Prince  Henry,  the  elder  son  of  James 
the  First.  In  the  grand  old  park  belonging  to  that  grand  old  place, 
there  will  be  on  that  afternoon  a  cricket-match.  I  thought  you 
would  like  to  see  our  national  game  in  a  scene  so  perfectly  well 
adapted  to  show  it  to  advantage.  Being  in  Mr.  Kingsley's  parish, 
and  he  very  intimate  with  the  owner,  it  is  most  likely,  too,  that  he 
will  be  there ;  so  that  altogether  it  seemed  to  me  something  that 
you  and  dear  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bennoch  might  like  to  see.  My  poor 
little  pony  could  take  you  from  hence ,  but  not  to  fetch  or  carry 
you,  and  if  the  dear  Bennochs  come,  it  would  be  advisable  to  let 
the  flymen  know  the  place  of  destination,  because,  Sir  William 
Cope  being  a  new-comer,  I  am  not  sure  whether  he  (like  his  pre- 
decessor, whom  I  knew)  allows  horses  and  carriages  to  be  put  up 
there.  I  should  like  you  to  look  on  for  half  an  hour  at  a  cricket- 
match  in  Bramshill  Park,  and  to  be  with  you  at  a  scene  so  English 
and  so  beautiful.  We  could  dine  here  afterwards,  the  Great  Wes- 
tern allowing  till  a  quarter  before  nine  in  the  evening.  Contrive 
this  if  you  can,  and  let  me  know  by  return  of  post,  and  forgive  my 

mal  addresse  about  Mr. .     There  certainly  has  something  come 

across  him,  —  not  about  you,  but  about  me  ;  one  thing  is,  I  think, 
his  extreme  politics.  I  always  find  these  violent  Radicals  very  un- 
willing to  .allow  in  others  the  unlimited  freedom  of  thought  that 
they  claim  for  themselves.     He  can't  forgive  my  love  for  the  Presi- 


MISS  MITFORD.  303 


dent.  Now  I  must  tell  you  a  story  I  know  to  be  true.  A  lady  of 
rank  was  placed  next  the  Prince  a  year  or  two  ago.  He  was  very 
gentle  and  courteous,  but  very  silent,  and  she  wanted  to  make  him 
talk.  At  last  she  remembered  that,  having  been  in  Switzerland 
twenty  years  before,  she  had  received  some  kindness  from  the 
Queen  Hortense,  and  had  spent  a  day  at  Arenenburg.  She  told 
him  so,  speaking  with  warm  admiration  of  the  Queen.  "  Ah,  ma- 
dame,  vous  avez  connu  ma  mere !  "  exclaimed  Louis  Napoleon,  turn- 
ing to  her  eagerly  and  talking  of  the  place  and  the  people  as  a 
school-boy  talks  of  home.  She  spent  some  months  in  Paris,  receiv- 
ing from  the  Prince  every  attention  which  his  position  enabled  him 
to  show ;  and  when  she  thanked  him  for  such  kindness,  his  answer 
was  always:  "  Ah,  madame,  vous  avez  connu  ma  mere  !  "  Is  it  in 
woman's  heart  not  to  love  such  a  man  ?  And  then  look  at  the  pur- 
chase of  the  Murillo  the  other  day,  and  the  thousand  really  great 

things  that  he  is  doing.     Mr. is  a  goose. 

I  send  this  letter  to  the  post  to-morrow,  when  I  send  other  letters, 
—  a  vile,  puritanical  post-office  arrangement  not  permitting  us  to 
send  letters  in  the  afternoon,  unless  we  send  straight  to  Reading 
(six  miles)  on  purpose,  —  so  perhaps  this  may  cross  an  answer  from 

Mr. or  from  you  about  Bramshill ;  perhaps,  on  the  other  hand, 

I  may  have  to  write  again.  At  all  events,  you  will  understand  that 
this  is  written  on  Saturday  night.  God  bless  you,  my  very  dear  and 
kind  friend. 

Ever  faithfully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

May  24, 1852. 

Ah,  dearest  Mr.  Fields,  how  much  too  good  and  kind  you  are  to 
me  always !  ....  I  wish  I  were  better,  that  I  might  go  to  town 
and  see  more  of  you ;  but  I  am  more  lame  than  ever,  and  having,  in 
my  weight  and  my  shortness  and  my  extreme  helplessness,  caught 
at  tables  and  chairs  and  dragged  myself  along  that  fashion,  I  have 
now  so  strained  the  upper  part  of  the  body  that  I  cannot  turn  in 
bed,  and  am  full  of  muscular  pains  which  are  worse  than  the  rheu- 
matism and  more  disabling,  so  that  I  seem  to  cumber  the  earth. 
They  say  that  summer,  when  it  comes,  will  do  me  good.  How 
much  more  sure  that  the  sight  of  you  will  do  me  good,  and  I  trust 
that,  when  your  business  will  let  you,  you  will  give  me  that  happi- 
ness. In  the  mean  while  will  you  take  the  trouble  to  send  the  en- 
closed and  my  answer,  if  it  be  fit  and  proper  and  properly  addressed? 
I  give  you  this  office,  because  really  the  kindness  seems  so  large 
and  unlimited,  that,  if  the  letter  had  not  come  enclosed  in  one  from 


304  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Mr.  Kenyon,  one  could  hardly  have  believed  it  to  be  serious,  and 
yet  I  am  well  used  to  kindness,  too.  I  thank  over  and  over  again 
your  glorious  poets  for  their  kindness,  and  tell  Mr.  Hawthorne  I 
shall  prize  a  letter  from  him  beyond  all  the  worlds  one  has  to  give. 
I  rejoice  to  hear  of  the  new  work,  and  can  answer  for  its  excel- 
lence. 

I  trust  that  the  English  edition  of  Dr.  Holmes  will  contain  the 
"  Astrcea,"  and  the  "  Morning  Visit,"  and  the  "Cambridge  Address." 
I  am  not  sure,  in  my  secret  soul,  that  I  do  not  prefer  him  to  any 
American  poet.  Besides  his  inimitable  word-painting,  the  charity 
is  so  large  and  the  scale  so  fine.  How  kind  in  you  to  like  my  book, 
— some  people  do  like  it.  I  am  afraid  to  tell  you  what  John  Rus- 
kin  says  of  it  from  Venice,  and  I  get  letters,  from  ten  to  twenty  a 
day.  You  know  how  little  I  dreamt  of  this !  Mrs.  Trollope  has 
sent  me  a  most  affectionate  letter,  bemoaning  her  ill-fortune  in  miss- 
ing you.  I  thank  you  for  the  G-alignani  edition,  and  the  presiden- 
tial kindness,  and  all  your  goodness  of  every  sort.  I  have  nothing 
to  give  you  but  as  large  a  share  of  my  poor  affection  as  I  think  any 
human  being  has.  You  know  a  copy  of  the  book  from  me  has 
been  waiting  for  you  these  three  months.  Adieu,  my  dear  friend. 
Ever  yours, 

M.  R.  M. 

(July  6, 1852.)    Monday  Night,  or,  rather,  2  o'clock  Tuesday  Morning. 

Having  just  finished  Mr.  Hawthorne's  book,  dear  Mr.  Fields,  1 

shall  get  K to  put  it  up  and  direct  it  so  that  it  may  be  ready  the 

first  time  Sam  has  occasion  to  go  to  Reading,  at  which  time  this 
letter  will  be  put  in  the  post ;  so  that  when  you  read  this,  you  may 
be  assured  that  the  precious  volumes  are  arrived  at  the  Paddington 
Station,  whence  I  hope  they  may  be  immediately  transmitted  to 
you.  If  not,  send  for  them.  They  will  have  your  full  direction, 
carriage  paid.  I  say  this,  because  the  much  vaunted  Great  Western 
is  like  all  other  railways,  most  uncertain  and  irregular,  and  we  have 
lost  a  packet  of  plants  this  very  week,  sent  to  us,  announced  by  let- 
ter and  never  arrived.  Thank  you  heartily  for  the  perusal  of  the 
book.  I  shall  not  name  it  in  a  letter  which  I  mean  to  enclose  to 
Mr.  Hawthorne,  not  knowing  that  you  mean  to  tell  him,  and  having 
plenty  of  other  things  to  say  to  him  besides.  To  you,  and  only  to 
you,  I  shall  speak  quite  frankly  what  I  think.     It  is  full  of  beauty 

and  of  power,  but  I  agree  with that  it  would  not  have  made 

a  reputation  as  the  other  two  books  did,  and  I  have  some  doubts 
whether  it  will  not  be  a  disappointment,  but  one  that  will  soon  be 


MISS  MITFORD.  305 


redeemed  by  a  fresh  and  happier  effort.  It  seems  to  me  too  long, 
too  slow,  and  the  personages  are  to  my  mind  ill  chosen.  Zenobia 
puts  one  in  mind  of  Fanny  Wright  and  Margaret  Fuller  and  other 
unsexed  authorities,  and  Hollingsvvorth  will,  I  fear,  recall,  to  Eng- 
lish people  at  least,  a  most  horrible  man  who  went  about  preaching 
peace.  I  heard  him  lecture  once,  and  shall  never  forget  his  pre- 
sumption, his  ignorance,  or  his  vulgarity.  He  is  said  to  know  many 
languages.  I  can  answer  for  his  not  knowing  his  own,  for  I  never, 
even  upon  the  platform,  the  native  home  of  bad  English,  heard  so 
much  in  so  short  a  time.  The  mesmeric  lecturer  and  the  sickly  girl 
are  almost  equally  disagreeable.  In  short,  the  only  likeable  person 
in  the  book  is  honest  Silas  Foster,  who  alone  gives  one  the  notion 
of  a  man  of  flesh  and  blood.  In  my  mind,  dear  Mr.  Hawthorne 
mistakes  exceedingly  when  he  thinks  that  fiction  should  be  based 
upon,  or  rather  seen  through,  some  ideal  medium.  The  greatest 
fictions  of  the  world  are  the  truest.  Look  at  the  "Vicar  of  Wake- 
field," look  at  the  "  Simple  Story,"  look  at  Scott,  look  at  Jane  Aus- 
ten, greater  because  truer  than  all,  look  at  the  best  works  of  your 
own  Cooper.  It  is  precisely  the  want  of  reality  in  his  smaller 
stories  which  has  delayed  Mr.  Hawthorne's  fame  so  long,  and  will 
prevent  its  extension  if  he  do  not  resolutely  throw  himself  into 
truth,  which  is  as  great  a  thing  in  my  mind  in  art  as  in  morals,  the 
foundation  of  all  excellence  in  both.  The  fine  parts  of  this  book,  at 
least  the  finest,  are  the  truest,  —  that  magnificent  search  for  the  body, 
which  is  as  perfect  as  the  search  for  the  exciseman  in  Guy  Man- 
nering,  and  the  burst  of  passion  in  Eliot's  pulpit.  The  plot,  too,  is 
very  finely  constructed,  and  doubtless  I  have  been  a  too  critical 
reader,  because,  from  the  moment  you  and  I  parted,  I  have  been 
suffering  from  fever,  and  have  never  left  the  bed,  in  which  I  am  now 
writing.  Don't  fancy,  dear  friend,  that  you  had  anything  to  do 
with  this. .  The  complaint  had  fixed  itself  and  would  have  run  its 
course,  even  although  your  ....  society  has  not  roused  and  ex- 
cited the  good  spirits,  which  will,  I  think,  fail  only  with  my  life. 
I  think  I  am  going  to  get  better.     Love  to  all. 

Ever  most  affectionately  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Tuesday.    (No  date.) 

My  dear  Friend:  Being  fit  for  nothing  but  lying  in  bed  and 
reading  novels,  I  have  just  finished  Mr.  Field's  and  Mr.  Jones's 
"Adrien,"  and  as  you  certainly  will  not  have  time  to  look  at  it,  and 
may  like  to  hear  my  opinion,  I  will  tell  it  to  you.  Mr.  Field,  from 
the  Preface,  is  of  New  York.     The  thing  that  has  diverted  me  most 

T 


306  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


is  the  love-plot  of  the  book.  A  young  gentleman,  whose  father 
came  and  settled  in  America  and  made  a  competence  there,  is  third 
or  fourth  cousin  to  an  English  lord.  He  falls  in  love  with  a  fish- 
erman's daughter  (the  story  appears  to  be  about  fifty  years  back). 
This  fisherman's  daughter  is  a  most  ethereal  personage,  speaking 
and  reading  Italian,  and  possessing  in  the  fishing-cottage  a  piano- 
forte and  a  collection  of  books ;  nevertheless,  she  one  day  hears  her 
husband  say  something  about  a  person  being  "  well  born  and  well 
bred,"  and  forthwith  goes  away  from  him,  in  order  to  set  him 
free  from  the  misery  entailed  upon  him,  as  she  supposes,  by  a 
disproportionate  marriage.  Is  not  this  curious  in  your  repub- 
lic ?  We  in  England  certainly  should  not  play  such  pranks.  A 
man  having  married  a  wife,  his  wife  stays  by  him.  This  di- 
lemma is  got  over  by  the  fisherman's  turning  out  to  be  him- 
self fifth  or  sixth  cousin  of  another  English  lord.  But,  having 
lived  really  as  a  fisherman  ever  since  his  daughter's  birth,  he 
knew  nothing  of  his  aristocratic  descent.  I  think  this  is  the  most 
remarkable  thing  in  the  book.  There  are  certain  flings  at  the  New 
England  character  (the  scene  is  laid  beside  the  waters  of  your  Bay) 
which  seem  to  foretell  a  not  very  remote  migration  on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Jones,  though  they  may  come  from  his  partner ;  nothing  very 
bad,  only  such  hits  as  this  :  "  He  was  simple,  humble,  affectionate, 
three  qualities  rare  anywhere,  but  perhaps  more  rare  in  that  part  of 
the  world  than  anywhere  else."  For  the  rest  the  book  is  far  inferior 
to  the  best  even  of  Mr.  James's  recent  productions,  such  as  "  Henry 
Smeaton."  These  two  authors  speak  of  the  corpse  of  a  drowned 
man  as  beautified  by  death,  and  retaining  all  the  look  of  life.  You 
remember  what  Mr.  Hawthorne  says  of  the  appearance  of  his 
drowned  heroine,  —  which  is  right  ?  I  have  had  the  most  delight- 
ful letter  possible  (you  shall  see  it  when  you  come)  from  dear  Dr. 
Holmes,  and  venture  to  trouble  you  with  the  enclosed  answer. 
Yesterday,  Mr.  Harness,  who  had  heard  a  bad  account  of  me  (for  I 
have  been  very  ill,  and,  although  much  better  now,  I  gather  from 
everybody  that  I  am  thought  to  be  breaking  down  fast),  so  like  the 
dear  kind  old  friend  that  he  is,  came  to  see  me.  It  was  a  great  pleas- 
ure. We  talked  much  of  you,  and  I  think  he  will  call  upon  you. 
Whether  he  call  or  not,  do  go  to  see  him.  He  is  fully  prepared  for 
you  as  Mr.  Dyce's  friend  and  Mr.  Rogers's  friend,  and  my  very  dear 
friend.  Do  go  ;  you  will  find  him  charming,  so  different  from  the 
author  people  that  Mr.  Kenyon  collects.  I  am  sure  of  your  liking 
each  other.  Surely  by  next  week  I  may  be  well  enough  to  see 
you.     You  and  Mrs.  W would  do  me  nothing  but  good.     Say 


MISS  MITFORD.  307 

everything  to  her,  and  to  our  dear  kind  friends,  the  Bennochs.  I 
ought  to  have  written  to  them,  but  I  get  as  much  scolded  for  writ- 
ing as  talking. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

(No  date.) 

How  good  and  kind  you  are  to  me,  dearest  Mr.  Fields !  kindest 
of  all,  I  think,  in  writing  me  those  ....  One  comfort  is,  that  if 
London  lose  you  this  year  I  do  think  you  will  not  suffer  many  to 
elapse  before  revisiting  it.  Ah,  you  will  hardly  find  your  poor  old 
friend  next  time !  Not  that  I  expect  to  die  just  now,  but  there  is 
such  a  want  of  strength,  of  the  power  that  shakes  off  disease,  which 
is  no  good  sign  for  the  constitution.  Yesterday  I  got  up  for  a  little 
while,  for  the  first  time  since  I  saw  you ;  but,  having  let  in  too 
many  people,  the  fever  came  on  again  at  night,  and  I  am  only  just 
n<>\\-  shaking  off  the  attack,  and  feel  that  I  must  submit  to  perfect 
quietness  for  the  present.  Still  the  attack  was  less  violent  than  the 
last,  and  unattended  by  sickness,  so  that  I  am  really  better  and  hope 
in  a  week  or  so  to  be  able  to  get  out  with  you  under  the  trees,  per- 
haps as  far  as  Upton. 

One  of  my  yesterday's  visitors  was  a  glorious  old  lady  of  seventy- 
six,  who  has  lived  in  Paris  for  the  last  thirty  years,  and  I  do  be- 
lieve came  to  England  very  much  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  me. 
She  had  known  my  father  before  his  marriage.  He  had  taken  her 
in  his  hand  (he  was  ahvays  fond  of  children)  one  day  to  see  my 
mother ;  she  had  been  present  at  their  wedding,  and  remembered  the 
old  housekeeper  and  the  pretty  nursery-maid  and  the  great  dog  too, 
and  had  won  with  great  difficulty  (she  being  then  eleven  years  old) 
the  privilege  of  having  the  baby  to  hold.  Her  descriptions  of  all 
these  things  and  places  were  most  graphic,  and  you  may  imagine 
how  much  she  must  have  been  struck  with  my  book  when  it  met 
her  eye  in  Paris,  and  how  much  I  (knowing  all  about  her  family) 
was  struck  on  my  part  by  all  these  details,  given  with  the  spirit 
and  fire  of  an  enthusiastic  woman  of  twenty.  We  had  certainly 
never  met.  I  left  Alresford  at  three  years  old.  She  made  an 
appointment  to  spend  a  day  here  next  year,  having  with  her  a 
daughter,  apparently  by  a  first  husband.  Also  she  had  the  same 
host  of  recollections  of  Louis  Napoleon,  remembered  the  Emperor, 
as  Premier  Consul,  and  La  Reine  Hortense  as  Mile,  de  Beau- 
harnais.  Her  account  of  the  Prince  is  favorable.  She  says  that 
it  is  a  most  real  popularity,  and  that,  if  anything  like  durability 
can  ever  be  predicated  of  the  French,  it  will  prove  a  lasting  one. 


308  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

I  had  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Browning  to-day,  talking  of  the  "  Facts 
of  the  Times,"  of  which  she  said  some  gentlemen  were  speaking 
with  the  same  supreme  contempt  and  disbelief  that  I  profess 
for  every  paragraph  in  that  collection  of  falsehoods.  For  my  own 
part,  I  hold  a  wise  despotism,  like  the  Prince  President's,  the  only 
rule  to  live  under.  Only  look  at  the  figure  our  soi-disant  states- 
men cut,  —  Whig  and  Tory,  —  and  then  glance  your  eye  across 
the  Atlantic  to  your  "  own  dear  people,"  as  Dr.  Holmes  says,  and 
their   doings   in   the   Presidential   line.     Apropos  to  Dr.  Holmes, 

you  '11  see  him  read  and  quoted  when  and  his  doings  are 

as  dead  as  Henry  the  Eighth.     has  no  feeling  for  finish  or 

polish  or  delicacy,  and  doubtless  dismisses  Pope  and  Goldsmith  with 
supreme  contempt.  She  never  mentions  that  horrid  trial,  to  my 
great  comfort.  Did  I  tell  you  that  I  had  been  reading  Louis  Napo- 
leon's most  charming  three  volumes  full  ? 

Among  my  visitors  yesterday  was  Miss  Percy,  the  heiress  of 
G-uy's  Cliff,  one  of  the  richest  in  England,  and,  what  is  odd,  the 
translator  of  "  Emilie  Carlen's  Birthright,"  the  only  Swedish  novel 
I  have  ever  got  fairly  through,  because  Miss  Percy  really  does  her 
work  well,  and  I  can't  read 's  English.  Miss  Percy,  who,  be- 
sides being  very  clever  and  agreeable,  is  also  pretty,  has  refused 
some  scores  of  offers,  and  declares  she  '11  never  marry;  she  has  a 
dread  of  being  sought  for  her  money 

God  bless  you,  dearest,  kindest  friend.  Say  everything  for  me 
to  your  companions. 

Ever  most  faithfully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

(No  date.) 

Yes,  dearest  Mr.  Fields,  I  continue  to  get  better  and  better,  and 

shall  be  delighted  to  see  you  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  W on  Friday. 

I  even  went  in  to  surprise  Mr.  May  on  Saturday,  so,  weather  per- 
mitting, we  shall  get  up  to  Upton  together.  I  want  you  to  see  that 
relique  of  Protestant  bigotry.  No  doubt  many  of  my  dear  country- 
men would  play  just  the  same  pranks  now,  if  the  spirit  of  the  age 
would  permit;  the  will  is  not  wanting,  witness  our  courts  of  law. 

I  have  been  reading  the  "  Life  of  Margaret  Fuller."  What  a  tragedy 
from  first  to  last !  She  must  have  been  odious  in  Boston  in  spite 
of  her  power  and  her  strong  sense  of  duty,  with  which  I  always 
sympathize ;  but  at  New  York,  where  she  dwindled  from  a  sibyl  to 
a  "  lionne,"  one  begins  to  like  her  better,  and  in  England  and 
Paris,  where  she  was  not  even  that,  better  still ;  so  that  one  is  pre- 
pared for  the  deep  interest  of  the  last  half- volume.    Of  course  her  ex- 


MISS  MITFORD.  3°9 


ample  must  have  done  much  injury  to  the  girls  of  her  train.  Of 
course,  also,  she  is  the  Zenobia  of  dear  Mr.  Hawthorne.  One  won- 
ders what  her  book  would  have  been  like. 

Mr.  Bennett  has  sent  me  the  "  Nile  Notes."  We  must  talk  about 
that,  which  I  have  not  read  yet,  not  delighting  much  in  Eastern 
travels,  or,  rather,  being  tired  of  them.  Ah,  how  sad  it  will  be  when 
I  cannot  say  "  We  will  talk  "  !  Surely  Mr.  Webster  does  not  mean 
to  get  up  a  dispute  with  England  1  That  would  be  an  affliction; 
for  what  nations  should  be  friends  if  ours  should  not?  What  our 
ministers  mean,  nobody  can  tell,  —  hardly,  I  suppose,  themselves. 
My  hope  was  in  Mr.  Webster.  Well,  this  is  for  talking.  God  bless 
you,  dear  friend. 

Ever  most  affectionately  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

August  7, 1852. 
Hurrah  1  dear  and  kind  friend,  I  have  found  the  line  without  any 
other  person's  aid  or  suggestion.  Last  night  it  occurred  to  me  that 
it  was  in  some  prologue  or  epilogue,  and  my  little  book-room  being 
very  rich  in  the  drama,  I  have  looked  through  many  hundreds  of 
those  bits  of  rhyme,  and  at  last  made  a  discovery  which,  if  it  have 
no  other  good  effect,  will  at  least  have  "  emptied  my  head  of  Cor- 
sica," as  Johnson  said  to  Boswell;  for  never  was  the  great  biog- 
rapher more  haunted  by  the  thought  of  Paoli  than  I  by  that  line. 
It  occurs  in  an  epilogue  by  G-arnck  on  quitting  the  stage,  June, 
177<i,  when  the  performance  was  for  the  benefit  of  sick  and  aged 
actors. 

A  veteran  see !   whose  last  act  on  the  stage 

Entreats  your  smiles  for  sickness  and  for  age ; 

Their  cause  I  plead,  plead  it  in  heart  and  mind, 

A  fellow-feeling  makes  one  ivondrous  kind." 

Not  finding  it  quoted  in  Johnson  convinced  me  that  it  would 
probably  have  been  written  after  the  publication  of  the  Dictionary, 
and  ultimately  guided  me  to  the  right  place.  It  is  singular  that 
epilogues  were  just  dismissed  at  the  first  representation  of  one  of 
my  plays,  "  Foscari,"  and  prologues  at  another,  "  Rienzi." 

I  have  but  a  moment  to  answer  ycur  most  kind  letter,  because  I 
have  been  engaged  with  company,  or  rather  interrupted  by  com- 
pany, ever  since  I  got  up,  but  you  will  pardon  me.  Nothing  ever 
did  me  so  much  good  as  your  visit.  My  only  comfort  is  the  hope 
of  your  return  in  the  spring.  Then  I  hope  to  be  well  enough  to 
show  Mr  Hawthorne  all  the  holes  and  corners  my  own  self.  Tell 
him  so.     I  am  already  about  to  study  the  State  Trials,  and  make 


3io  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


myself  perfect  in  all  that  can  assist  the  romance.  It  will  be  a  labor 
of  love  to  do  for  him  the  small  and  humble  part  of  collecting  facts 
and  books,  and  making  ready  the  palette  for  the  great  painter. 

Talking  of  artists,  one  was  here  on  Sunday  who  was  going  to 
Upton  yesterday.  His  object  was  to  sketch  every  place  mentioned 
in  my  book.     Many  of  the  places  (as  those  round  Taplow)  he  had 

taken,  and  K says  he  took  this  house  and  the  stick  and  Fan- 

chon  and  probably  herself.  I  was  unluckily  gone  to  take  home  the 
dear  visitors  who  cheer  me  daily  and  whom  I  so  wish  you  to  see. 

God  bless  you  all,  dear  friends. 

Ever  most  affectionately  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

SwALLOWFreLD,  September  24, 1852 
My  very  dear  Mr.  Fields  :  I  am  beginning  to  get  very  fidgety 
about  you,  and  thinking  rather  too  often,  not  only  of  the  breadth  of 
the  Atlantic,  but  of  its  dangers.  However  I  must  hear  soon,  and  I 
write  now  because  I  am  expecting  a  fellow-townsman  of  yours,  Mr. 
Thompson,  an  American  artist,  who  expected  to  find  you  still  in 
England,  and  who  is  welcomed,  as  I  suppose  all  Boston  would  be 
....  People  do  not  love  you  the  less,  dear  friend,  for  missing  you. 
I  write  to  you  this  morning,  because  I  have  something  to  say 
and  something  to  ask.  In  the  first  place,  I  am  better.  Mr.  Har- 
ness, who,  God  bless  him,  left  that  Temple  of  Art,  the  Deepdene, 
and  Mr.  Hope's  delightful  conversation,  to  come  and  take  care  of 
me,  stayed  at  Swallowfield  three  weeks.  He  found  out  a  tidy  lodg- 
ing, which  he  has  retained,  and  he  promises  to  come  back  in  No- 
vember ;  at  present  he  is  again  at  the  Deepdene.  Nothing  could  be 
so  judicious  as  his  way  of  going  on ;  he  came  at  two  o'clock  to  my 
cottage  and  we  drove  out  together ;  then  he  went  to  his  lodgings  to 
dinner,  to  give  me  three  hours  of  perfect  quiet ;  at  eight  he  and 
the  Russells  met  here  to  tea,  and  he  read  Shakespeare  (there  is  no 
such  reader  in  the  world)  till  bedtime.  Under  his  treatment  no 
wonder  that  I  improved,  but  the  low-fever  is  not  far  off;  doing  a 
little  too  much,  I  fell  back  even  before  his  departure,  and  have  been 
worse  since.     However,  on  the  whole,  I  am  much  better. 

Now  to  my  request.  You  perhaps  remember  my  speaking  to 
you  of  a  copy  of  my  "  Recollections,"  which  was  in  course  of  illus- 
tration in  the  winter.  Mr.  Holloway,  a  great  print-seller  of  Bedford 
Street,  Covent  Garden,  has  been  engaged  upon  it  ever  since,  and 
brought  me  the  first  volume  to  look  at  on  Tuesday.  It  would  have 
rejoiced  the  soul  of  dear  Dr.  Holmes.  My  book  is  to  be  set  into  six 
or  seven  or  eight  volumes,  quarto,  as  the  case  may  be  ;  and  although 


MISS   MITFORD. 


not  unfamiliar  with  the  luxuries   of  the  library,  I  could  not  have 
believed  in  the  number  and  richness  of  the  pearls  which  have  been 
strung  upon  so  slender  a  thread.    The  rarest  and  finest  portraits,  often 
many  of  one  person  and  always  the  choicest  and  the  best,  —  ranging 
from  magnificent  heads  of  the  great  old  poets,  from  the  Charleses 
and  Crorawells,  to  Sprat  and  George  Faulkner  of  Dublin,  of  whom 
it  was  thought  none  existed,  until  this  print  turned  up  unexpectedly 
in  a  supplementary  volume  of  Lord  Chesterfield;  nothing  is  too  odd 
for  Mr.  Holloway.    There  is  a  colored  print  of  George  the  Third.  —  a 
lull  length  which  really  brings  the  old  king  to  life  again,  so  striking 
is  the  resemblance,  and  quantities  of  theatrical  people,  Munden  and 
Elliston  and  the  Kembles.     There  are  two  portraits  of  "  glorious 
John  "  in  Fenruddock.     Then  the  curious  old  prints  of  old  houses. 
They  have  not  only  one  two   hundred  years  old  of  Dorrington 
Castle,  but   the   actual   drawing   from  which   that  engraving  was 
made ;  and  they  are  rich  beyond  anything  in  exquisite  drawings  of 
scenery  by  modern   artists  sent  on  purpose   to  the  different  spots 
mentioned.      Besides   which   there   are   all   sorts   of  characteristic 
autographs  (a  capital  one  of  Pope)  ;  in  short,  nothing  is  wanting 
that  the  most  unlimited  expense  (Mr.  Holloway  told  me  that  his 
employer,  a  great  city  merchant  of  unbounded  riches,  constantly 
urged  him  to  spare  no  expense  to  procure  everything  that  money 
would  buy),  added  to  taste,  skill,  and  experience,  could  accomplish. 
Of  course  the  number  of  proper  names  and  names  of  places  have 
been  one  motive  for  conferring  upon  my  book  an  honor  of  which  I 
never  dreamt ;  but  there  is,  besides,  an  enthusiasm  for  my  writings 
on  the  part  of  Mrs.  Dillon,  the  lady  of  the  possessor,  for  whom  it  is 
destined  as  a  birthday  gift.     Now  what  I  have  to  ask  of  you  is  to 
procure  for  Mr.  Holloway  as  many  autographs  and  portraits  as  you 
can  of  the  American  writers  whom  I  have  named,  —  dear  Dr.  Holmes, 
Hawthorne,  Longfellow,  Whittier,   Prescott,  Ticknor.      If  any  of 
them  would  add  a  line   or  two  of  their  writing  to  their  names,  it 
would  be  a  favor,  and  if  being  about  it.  they  would  send  two  other 
plain  autographs,  for  I  have  heard  of  two  other  copies  in  course  of 
illustration,  and  expect  to  be  applied  to  by  their  proprietors  every 
day.    Mr.  Holloway  wrote  to  some  trade  connection  in  Philadelphia, 
but  probably  because  he  applied  to  the  wrong  place  and  the  wrong 
person,  and  because  he  limited  his  correspondent  to  time,  obtained 
no  results.     If  there  be  a  print  of  Professor  Longfellow's  house,  so 
much  the  better,  or  any  other  autographs  of  Americans  named  in 
my  book.     Forgive  this  trouble,  dear  friend.     You  will  probably 
see  tl. «?  work  when  you  come  to  London  in  the  spring,  and  then 


313  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

you  will  understand  the  interest  that  I  take  in  it  as  a  great  book  of 
art.  Also  my  dear  old  friend,  Lady  Morley  (Gibbon's  correspond- 
ent), who  at  the  age  of  eighty-three  is  caught  by  new  books  and  is 
as  enthusiastic  as  a  girl,  has  commissioned  me  to   inquire   about 

your  new  authoress,  the  writer  of ,  who  she  is  and  all  about 

her.  For  my  part,  I  have  not  finished  the  book  yet,  and  never 
shall.  Besides  my  own  utter  dislike  to  its  painfulness,  its  one- 
sidedness,  and  its  exaggeration,  I  observe  that  the  sort  of  popu- 
larity which  it  has  obtained  in  England,  and  probably  in  America, 
is  decidedly  bad,  of  the  sort  which  cannot  and  does  not  last,  —  a  cry 

which  is  always  essentially  one-sided  and  commonly  wrong 

Ever  most  faithfully  and  affectionately  yours, 

M.  K.  M. 

October  6, 1852. 

Dearest  Mr.  Fields  :  You  will  think  that  I  persecute  you,  but 
I  find  that  Mr.  Dillon,  for  whom  Mr.  Holloway  is  illustrating 
my  Recollections  so  splendidly,  means  to  send  the  volumes  to  the 
binder  on  the  1st  of  November.  I  write  therefore  to  beg,  in  case 
of  your  not  having  yet  sent  off  the  American  autographs  and  por- 
traits, that  they  may  be  forwarded  direct  to  Mr.  Holloway,  25  Bed- 
ford Street,  Covent  Garden,  London.  It  is  very  foolish  not  to 
wait  until  all  the  materials  are  collected,  but  it  is  meant  as  an  offer- 
ing to  Mrs.  Dillon,  and  I  suppose  there  is  some  anniversary  in  the 
way.  Mr.  Dillon  is  a  great  lover  and  preserver  of  fine  engravings ; 
his  collection,  one  of  the  finest  private  collections  in  the  world,  is 
estimated  at  sixty  thousand  pounds.  He  is  a  friend  of  dear  Mr. 
Bennoch's,  who,  when  I  told  him  the  compliment  that  had  been  paid 
to  my  work  by  a  great  city  man,  immediately  said  it  could  be 
nobody  but  Mr.  Dillon.  I  have  twice  seen  Mr.  Bennoch  within  the 
last  ten  days,  once  with  Mr.  Johnson  and  Mr.  Thompson,  your  own 
Boston  artist,  whom  I  liked  much,  and  who  gave  me  the  great 

pleasure  of  talking  of  you  and  of  dear  Mr.  and   Mrs.  W ,  last 

time  with  his  own  good  and  charming  wife  and .     Only  think  of 

's  saying  that  Shakespeare,  if  he  had  lived  now,  would  have  been 

thought  nothing  of,  and  this  rather  as  a  compliment  to  the  age  than 
not !  But,  if  you  remember,  he  printed  amended  words  to  the  air 
of  "  Drink  to  me  only."  Ah,  dear  me,  I  suspect  that  both  William 
Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson  will  survive  him  ;  don't  you  ?  Never- 
theless he  is  better  than  might  be  predicated  from  that  observation. 

All  my  domestic  news  is  bad  enough.  My  poor  pretty  pony 
fceeps  his  bed  in  the  stable,  with  a  violent  attack  of  influenza,  and 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  313 


Sam  and  Fanchon  spend  three  parts  of  their  time  in  nursing  him. 
Moreover  we  have  had  such  rains  here  that  the  Lodden  has  over- 
flowed its  banks,  and  is  now  covering  the  water  meadows,  and 
almost  covering  the  lower  parts  of  the  lanes.  Adieu,  dearest  friend. 
Ever  most  faithfully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Swallowfield,  October  13, 1852. 

More  than  one  letter  of  mine,  dearest  friend,  crossed  yours,  for 
which  I  cannot  sufficiently  thank  you.  Nobody  can  better  under- 
stand than  I  do,  how  very,  very  glad  your  own  people,  and  all  the 
good  city,  must  feel  to  get  you  back  again.  —  I  trust  not  to  keep; 
for  in  spite  of  sea-sickness,  that  misery  which  during  the  summer  I 
have  contrived  to  feel  on  land,  I  still  hope  that  we  shall  have  you 
here  again  in  the  spring.  I  am  impatiently  waiting  the  arrival  of 
portraits  and  autographs,  and  if  they  do  not  come  in  time  to  bind, 
I  shall  charge  Mr.  Ilolloway  to  contrive  that  they  may  be  pasted 
with  the  copy  of  my  Recollections  to  which  Mr.  Dillon  is  paying  so 
high  and  so  costly  a  compliment.     Now  I  must  tell  you  some  news. 

First  let  me  say  that  there  is  an  admirable  criticism  in  one  of  the 
numbers  of  the  Nonconformist,  edited  hy  Edward  Miall,  one  of 
the  new  members  of  Parliament,  and  certainly  the  most  able  of  the 
dissenting  organs,  on  our  favorite  poet,  Dr.  Holmes.  Also  I  have 
a  letter  from  Dr.  Robert  Dickson,  of  Hertford  Street,  May  Fair, 
one  of  the  highest  and  most  fashionable  London  physicians,  re- 
specting my  book,  liking  Dr.  Holmes  better  than  anybody  for 
the  very  qualities  for  which  he  would  himself  choose  to  be  pre- 
ferred, originality  and  justness  of  thought,  admirable  fineness  and 
propriety  of  diction,  and  a  power  of  painting  by  words,  very  rare 
in  any  age,  and  rarest  of  the  rare  in  this,  when  vagueness  and 
obscurity  mar  so  much  that  is  high  and  pure.  I  shall  keep  this 
letter  to  shoio  Dr.  Holmes,  tell  him  with  my  affectionate  love.  If  it 
were  not  written  on  the  thickest  paper  ever  seen,  and  as  huge  as 
it  is  thick,  I  would  send  it;  but  I  '11  keep  it  for  him  against  he  comes 
to  claim  it.  The  description  of  spring  is,  Dr.  Dickson  says,  remark- 
able for  originality  and  truth.  He  thanks  me  for  those  poems  of 
Dr.  Holmes  as  if  I  had  written  them.  Now  be  free  to  tell  him  all 
this.  Of  course  you  have  told  Mr.  Hawthorne  of  the  highly  eulogis- 
tic critique  on  the  "  Blithedale  Romance  "  in  the  Times,  written,  I 
believe,  by  Mr.  Willmott,  to  whom  I  lent  the  veritable  copy  received 
from  the  author.  Another  thing  let  me  say,  that  I  have  been  read' 
ing  with  the  greatest  pleasure  some  letters  on  African  trees  copied 
from  the  New  York  Tribune  into  Bentley's  Miscellany,  and  no 
14 


314  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


doubt  by  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor.  Our  chief  London  news  is  that  Mrs. 
Browning's  cough  came  on  so  violently,  in  consequence  of  the 
sudden  setting  in  of  cold  weather,  that  they  are  off  for  a  week  or 
two  to  Paris,  then  to  Florence,  Rome,  and  Naples,  and  back  here 
in  the  summer.  Her  father  still  refuses  to  open  a  letter  or  to  hear 
her  name.  Mrs.  Southey,  suffering  also  from  chest-complaint,  has 
shut  herself  up  till  June.  Poor  Anne  Hatton,  who  was  betrothed 
to  Thomas  Davis,  and  was  supposed  to  be  in  a  consumption,  is 
recovering,  they  say,  under  the  advice  of  a  clairvoyante.  Most 
likely  a  broken  vessel  has  healed  on  the  lungs,  or  perhaps  an 
abscess.  Be  what  it  may,  the  consequence  is  happy,  for  she  is  a 
lovely  creature  and  the  only  joy  of  a  fond  mother.  Alfred  Tenny- 
son's boy  was  christened  the  other  day  by  the  name  of  Hallam 
Tennyson,  Mr.  Hallam  standing  to  it  in  person.  This  is  just  as  it 
should  be  on  all  sides,  only  that  Arthur  Hallam  would  have  been  a 
prettier  name.  You  know  that  Arthur  Hallam  was  the  lost  friend 
of  the  "  In  Memoriam,"  and  engaged  to  Tennyson's  sister,  and  that 
after  his  death,  and  even  after  her  marrying  another  man,  Mr. 
Hallam  makes  her  a  large  allowance. 

We  have  just  escaped  a  signal  misfortune ;  my  dear  pretty  pony 
has  been  upon  the  point  of  death  with  influenza.  Would  not  you 
have  been  sorry  if  that  pony  had  died  ?  He  has,  however,  recovered 
under  Sam's  care  and  skill,  and  the  first  symptom  of  convalescence 
•was  his  neighing  to  Sam  through  the  window.  You  will  have 
found  out  that  I  too  am  better.  I  trust  to  be  stronger  when  you 
■come  again,  well  enough  to  introduce  you  to  Mr.  Harness,  whom 
we  are  expecting  here  next  month.  God  bless  you,  my  dear  and 
kind  friend.  I  send  this  through  dear  Mr  Bennoch,  whom  I  like 
better  and  better ;  so  I  do  Mrs.  Bennoch,  and  everybody  who  knows 
;and  loves  you.     Ever,  my  dear  Mr.  Fields, 

Your  faithful  and  affectionate  friend,  M.  R.  M. 

P.  S.  —  October  17.  I  have  kept  this  letter  open  till  now,  and  I 
am  glad  I  did  so.  Acting  upon  the  hint  you  gave  of  Mr.  De 
Quincey's  kind  feeling,  I  wrote  to  him,  and  yesterday  I  had  a 
charming  letter  from  his  daughter,  saying  how  much  her  father  was 
gratified  by  mine,  that  he  had  already  written  an  answer,  amounting 
to  a  good-sized  pamphlet,  but  that  when  it  would  be  finished  was 
doubtful,  so  she  sent  hers  as  a  precursor. 

Swallowfield,  November  11, 1852L 

I  write,  dearest  friend,  and  although  the  packet  which  you  had 
the  infinite  goodness  to  send,  has  not  reached  me  yet,  and  may  nol 


MISS   MITFORD.  315 


possibly  before  my  letter  goes,  —  so  uncertain  is  our  railway,  —  yet 
I  will  write  because  our  excellent  friend,  Mr.  Bennoch,  says  that  he 
has  sent  it  off.  ....  You  will  understand  that  I  am  even  more 
obliged  by  your  goodness  about  Mr.  Dillon's  book  than  by  any  of 
the  thousand  obligations  to  myself  only.  Besides  my  personal  in- 
terest, as  so  great  a  compliment  to  my  own  work,  Mr.  Dillon  ap- 
pears to  be  a  most  interesting  person.  He  is  a  friend  of  Mr.  Ben- 
noch's,  from  whom  I  had  his  history,  one  most  honorable  to  him, 
and  he  has  written  to  me  since  I  wrote  to  you  and  proposes  to 
come  and  see  me.  You  must  see  him  when  you  come  to  England, 
and  must  see  his  collection  of  engravings.  Would  not  dear  Dr. 
Holmes  have  a  sympathy  with  Mr.  Dillon  ?  Have  you  such  fancies 
in  America  ?  They  are  not  common  even  here ;  but  Miss  Skerrett 
(the  Queen's  factotum)  tells  me  that  the  most  remarkable  book  in 
Windsor  Castle  is  a  De  Grammont  most  richly  and  expensively  il- 
lustrated by  George  the  Fourth,  who,  with  all  his  sins  as  a  monarch, 
was  the  only  sovereign  since  the  Stuarts  of  any  literary  taste. 

Here  is  your  packet!  O  my  dear,  dear  friend,  how  shall  I  thank 
you  half  enough  !  I  shall  send  the  parcels  to-morrow  morning,  the 
very  first  thing,  to  Mr.  Holloway.  The  work  is  at  the  binder's,  but 
fly-leaves  have  been  left  for  the  American  packet  of  which  I  felt  so 
sure,  although  even  I  could  hardly  foresee  its  value.  One  or  two 
duplicates  I  have  kept.  Tell  Mr.  Hawthorne  that  I  shall  make  a 
dozen  people  rich  and  happy  by  his  autograph,  and  tell  Dr.  Holmes 
I  could  not  find  it  in  my  heart  to  part  with  the  "  Mary  "  stanza. 
Never  was  a  writer  who  possessed  more  perfectly  the  art  of  doing 
great  things  greatly  and  small  things  gracefully.  Love  to  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne and  to  him. 

Poor  Daniel  Webster!  or  rather  poor  America!  Rich  as  she  is, 
she  cannot  afford  the  loss,  the  greatest  the  world  has  known  since 
our  Sir  Robert.  But  what  a  death-bed,  and  what  a  funeral !  How 
noble  an  end  of  that  noble  life !  I  feel  it  the  more,  hearing  and 
reading  so  much  about  the  Duke's  funeral,  which  by  dint  of  the  de- 
lay will  not  cause  the  slightest  real  feeling,  but  will  be  attended 
just  like  every  show,  and  yet  as  a  show  will  be  gloomy  and  poor. 
How  much  better  to  have  laid  him  simply  here  at  Strathfieldsaye, 
and  left  it  as  a  place  of  pilgrimage,  —  as  Strathfield  will  be, —  although 
between  the  two  men,  in  my  mind,  there  was  no  comparison ;  the 
one  was  a  genius,  the  other  mere  soldier,  —  pure  physical  force 
measured  with  intellect  the  richest  and  the  proudest.  I  have  twenty 
letters  speaking  of  him  as  one  of  the  greatest  among  the  statesmen 
of  the  age.     The  Times  only  refuses  to  do  him  justice.     But  when 


316  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

did  the  Times  do  justice  to  any  one  ?  Look  how  it  talks  of  our 
Emperor. 

Your  friend  Bayard  Taylor  came  to  see  me  a  fortnight  ago,  just 
before  he  sailed  on  his  tour  round  the  world.  I  told  him  the  first 
of  Bentiey's  reprinting  his  letters  from  the  New  York  Tribune ;  he 
had  not  heard  a  word  of  it.  He  seemed  an  admirable  person,  and  it 
is  good  to  have  such  travellers  to  follow  with  one's  heart  and  one's 
earnest  good  wishes. 

Also  I  have  had  two  packets,  —  one  from  Mrs.  Sparks,  with  a  nice 
letter,  and  some  fresh  and  glorious  autumnal  flowers,  and  a  collection 
of  autumn  leaves  from  your  glorious  forests.  I  have  written  to 
thank  her.  She  seems  full  of  heart,  and  she  says  that  she  drove 
into  Boston  on  purpose  to  see  you,  but  missed  you.  When  you  do 
meet,  tell  me  about  her.  Also,  I  have  through  you,  dear  friend,  a 
most  interesting  book  from  Mr.  Ware.  To  him,  also,  I  have  writ- 
ten, but  tell  him  how  much  I  feel  and  prize  his  kindness,  all  the 

more  welcome   for  coming  from  a   kinsman  of  dear  Mrs.  W . 

Tell  her  and  her  excellent  husband  that  they  cannot  think  of  us 
oftener  or  more  warmly  than  we  think  of  them.  0,  how  I  should 
like  to  visit  you  at  Boston !  But  I  should  have  your  malady  by  the 
way,  and  not  your  strength  to  stand  it 

God  bless  you,  my  dear  and  excellent  friend !  I  seem  to  have  a 
thousand  things  to  say  to  you,  but  the  post  is  going,  and  a  whole, 
sheet  of  paper  would  not  hold  my  thanks. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Swallowfield,  November  25, 1852. 

My  dear  Friend  :  Your  most  kind  and  welcome  letter  arrived 
to-day,  two  days  after  the  papers,  for  which  I  thank  you  much. 
Still  more  do  I  thank  you  for  that,  kind  and  charming  letter,  and 
for  its  enclosures.  The  anonymous  poem  [it  was  by  Dr.  T.  W.  Par- 
sons] is  far  finer  than  anything  that  has  been  written  on  the  death 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  as  indeed  it  was  a  far  finer  subject. 
May  I  inquire  the  name  of  the  writer  ?  Mr.  Everett's  speech  also 
is  superb,  and  how  very  much  I  prefer  the  Marshfield  funeral  in  its 
sublime  simplicity  to  the  tawdry  pageantry  here !  I  have  had  fifty 
letters  from  persons  who  saw  the  funeral  in  St.  Paul's,  and  seen  as 
many  who  saw  that  or  the  procession,  and  it  is  strange  that  the 
papers  have  omitted  alike  the  great  successes  and  the  great  failures. 
My  young  neighbor,  a  captain  in  the  Grenadier  Guards  (the  Duke's 
regiment),  saw  the  uncovering  the  car  which  had  been  hidden  by 
the  drapery,  and  was  to  have  been  a  great  effect,  and  he  says  it  was 
exactly  what  is  sometimes  seen   in  a  theatre   when  one  scene   is 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  317 


drawn  up  too  soon  and  the  other  is  not  ready.  Carpenters  and 
undertaker's  men  were  on  all  parts  of  the  car,  and  the  draperies  and 
ornaments  were  everywhere  but  in  their  places.  Again,  the  pro- 
cession waited  upwards  of  an  hour  at  the  cathedral  door,  because 
the  same  people  had  made  no  provision  for  taking  the  coffin  from 
the  car ;  again,  the  sunlight  was  let  into  St.  Paul's,  mingling  most 
discordantly  with  the  gas,  and  the  naked  wood  of  screens  and 
benches  and  board  beams  disfigured  the  grand  entrance.  In  three 
months'  interval  they  had  not  time!  On  the  other  hand,  the  strong 
points  were  the  music,  the  effect  of  which  is  said  to  have  been  un- 
rivalled ;  the  actual  performance  of  the  service,  —  my  friend  Dean 
Milman  is  renowned  for  his  manner  of  reading  the  funeral  service, 
he  officiated  at  the  burial  of  Mrs.  Lockhart  (Sir  Walter's  favorite 
daughter),  —  and  none  who  were  present  could  speak  of  it  with- 
out tears;  the  clerical  part  of  the  procession,  which  was  a  real  and 
visible  mourning  pageant  in  its  flowing  robes  of  white  with  black 
bands  and  sashes;  the  living  branches  of  laurel  and  cypress  amongst 
the  mere  finery ;  and,  above  all,  the  hushed  silence  of  the  people, 
always  most  and  best  impressed  by  anything  that  appeals  to  the 
imagination  or  the  heart. 

I  suppose  you  will  have  seen  how  England  is  flooded,  and  you 
will  like  to  hear  that  this  tiny  speck  has  escaped.  The  Lodden  is 
over  the  park,  and  turns  the  beautiful  water  meadows  down  to 
Strathfieldsaye  into  a  no  less  beautiful  lake,  two  or  three  times  a 
week ;  but  then  it  subsides  as  quickly  as  it  rises,  so  there  is  none  of 
the  lying  under  water  which  results  in  all  sorts  of  pestilential  ex- 
halations, and  this  cottage  is  lifted  out  of  every  bad  influence,  nay, 
a  kind  neighbor  having  had  my  lane  scraped,  I  walk  dry-shod  every 
afternoon  a  mile  and  a  half,  which  is  more  than  I  ever  expected  to 
compass  again,  and  for  which  I  am  most  thankful.     But  we  have  had 

our  own  troubles.     K has  lost  her  father.     He  was  seized  with 

paralysis  and  knew  nobody,  so  they  desired  her  not  to  come,  and 
Sam  went  alone  to  the  funeral.  After  all,  this  is  her  home,  and  she 
has  pretty  well  got  over  her  affliction,  and  the  pony  is  well  again, 
and  strong  enough  to  draw  you  and  me  in  the  spring,  —  for  I  am 
looking  forward  to  good  and  happy  days  again  when  you  shall  re- 
turn to  England. 

Your  magnificent  present  for  Mr.  Dillon's  book  was  quite  in 
time,  dear  friend.  I  had  warned  them  to  leave  room,  and  Mr.  Hol- 
loway  and  the  binders  contrived  it  admirably.  They  are  most 
grateful  for  your  kindness,  and  most  gratefully  shall  I  receive  the 
promised  volumes.     I  have  not  yet  got  "  the  pamphlet,"  and  am 


318  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


much  afraid  it  is  buried  in  what  Miss  De  Quincey  calls  her  "  father's 
chaos  "  ;  but  I  have  charming  letters  from  her,  and  am  heartily  glad 
that  I  wrote.  You  have  the  way  (like  Mr.  Bennoch)  of  making 
friends  still  better  friends,  and  bringing  together  those  who,  without 
you,  would  have  had  no  intercourse.  It  is  the  very  finest  of  all  the  fine 
arts.  Tell  dear  Dr.  Holmes  that  the  more  I  hear  of  him,  the  more  I 
feel  how  inadequate  has  been  all  that  I  have  said  to  express  my 
own  feelings;  and  tell  President  Sparks  that  his  charming  wife 
ought  to  have  received  a  long  letter  from  me  at  the  same  moment 
with  yourself.  Mr.  Hawthorne's  new  work  will  be  a  real  treat. 
Tell  me  if  Mr.  Bennoch  has  sent  you  some  stanzas  on  Ireland,  which 
have  more  of  the  very  highest  qualities  of  Beranger  than  I  have 
ever  seen  in  English  verse.  We  who  love  him  shall  have  to  be 
very  proud  of  dear  Mr.  Bennoch.  Tell  me,  too,  if  our  solution  of 
the  line,  "A  fellow-feeling  makes  us  wondrous  kind,"  was  the 
first ;  and  why  the  new  President  is  at  once  called  General  and 
talked  of  as  a  civilian.  The  other  President  goes  on  nobly,  does 
he  not? 

Say  everything   for  me  to  dear  Mr.  and  Mrs.  W and   all 

friends. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

SwAiiownELD ,  December  14, 1852. 
O  my  very  dear  friend,  how  much  too  kind  you  are  to  me,  who 
have  nothing  to  give  you  in  return  but  affection  and  gratitude !  Mr. 
Bennett  brought  me  your  beautiful  book  on  Saturday,  and  you  may 
think  how  heartily  we  wished  that  you  had  been  here  also.  But 
you  will  come  this  spring,  will  you  not  ?  I  earnestly  hope  nothing 
will  come  in  the  way  of  that  happiness.  Before  leaving  the  subject 
of  our  good  little  friend,  let  me  say  that,  talking  over  our  own  best 
authors  and  your  De  Quincey  (N.  B.  The  pamphlet  has  not  ar- 
rived yet,  I  fear  it  is  forever  buried  in  De  Quincey's  "  chaos  "),  — 
talking  of  these  things,  we  both  agreed  that  there  was  another 
author,  probably  little  known  in  America,  who  would  be  quite 
worthy  of  a  reprint,  William  Hazlitt.  Is  there  any  complete 
edition  of  his  Lectures  and  Essays  ?  I  should  think  they  would 
come  out  well,  now  that  Thackeray  is  giving  his  Lectures.  I 
know  that  Charles  Lamb  and  Talfourd  thought  Hazlitt  not  only 
the  most  brilliant,  but  the  soundest  of  all  critics.  Then  his  Life  of 
Napoleon  is  capital,  that  is,  capital  for  an  English  life  ;  the  only  way 
really  to  know  the  great  man  is  to  read  him  in  the  memoires  of  his 
own  ministers,  lieutenants,  and  servants;  for  he  was  a  hero  to  his 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  319 

valet  de  chambre,  the  greatness  was  so  real  that  it  would  bear 
close  looking  into.  And  our  Emperor !  I  have  just  had  a  letter 
from  Osborne,  from  Marianne  Skerrett,  describing  the  arrival  of 
Count  Walewski  under  a  royal  salute  to  receive  the  Queen's  recog- 
nition of  Napoleon  III.  She,  Marianne,  says,  "  How  great  a  man 
that  is,  and  how  like  a  fairy  tale  the  whole  story !  "  She  adds, 
that,  seeing  much  of  Louis  Philippe,  she  never  could  abide  him,  he 
was  so  cunning  and  so  false,  not  cunning  enough  to  hide  the  false- 
ness !  Were  not  you  charmed  with  the  bits  of  sentiment  and  feel- 
ing that  come  out  all  through  our  hero's  Southern  progress  ?  Al- 
ways one  finds  in  him  traits  of  a  gracious  and  graceful  nature,  far 
too  frequent  and  too  spontaneous  to  be  the  effect  of  calculation.  It 
is  a  comfort  to  find,  in  spite  of  our  delectable  press,  ministers  are 
wise  enough  to  understand  that  our  policy  is  peace,  and  not  only 
peace  but  cordiality.  To  quarrel  with  France  would  be  almost  as 
great  a  sin  as  to  quarrel  with  America.  What  a  set  of  fools  our 
great  ladies  are  !  I  had  hoped  better  things  of  Lord  Carlisle,  but  to 
find  that  long  list  at  Stafford  House  in  female  parliament  assembled, 
echoing  the  absurdities  of  Exeter  Hall,  leaving  their  own  duties  and 
the  reserve  which  is  the  happy  privilege  of  our  sex  to  dictate  to  a 
great  nation  on  a  point  which  all  the  world  knows  to  be  its  chief 
difficulty,  is  enough  to  make  one  ashamed  of  the  title  of  English- 
woman. I  know  a  great  many  of  these  committee  ladies,  and  in 
most  of  them  I  trace  that  desire  to  follow  the  fashion,  and  concert 
with  duchesses,  which  is  one  of  the  besetting  sins  of  the  literary 

circles  in   London.     One  name  did  surprise  me, ,  considering 

that  one  of  her  husband's  happiest  bits,  in  the  book  of  his  that  will 
live,  was  the  subscription  for  sending  flannel  waistcoats  to  the 
negroes  in  the  West  Indies ;  and  that  in  this  present  book  a  certain 
Mrs.  Jellyby  is  doing  just  what  his  wife  is  doing  at  Stafford  House ! 
Even  if  I  had  not  had  my  earnest  thanks  to  send  you,  I  should 
have  written  this  week  to  beg  you  to  convey  a  message  to  Mr. 
Hawthorne.  Mr.  Chorley  writes  to  me,  "  You  will  be  interested  to 
hear  that  a  Russian  literary  man  of  eminence  was  so  much  attracted 
to  the  '  House  of  the  Seven  Cables '  by  the  review  in  the  Athe- 
naeum, as  to  have  translated  it  into  Russian  and  published  it  feuille- 
tonwise  in  a  newspaper."  I  know  you  will  have  the  goodness  to 
tell  Mr.  Hawthorne  this,  with  my  love.  Mr.  Chorley  saw  the  en- 
trance of  the  Empereur  into  the  Tuileries.  He  looked  radiant. 
The  more  I  read  that  elegy  on  the  death  of  Daniel  Webster,  the 
more  I  find  to  admire.     It  is  as  grand  as  a  dirge  upon  an   organ. 

Love  to  the  dear  W s  and  to  Dr.  Holmes. 

Ever,  dearest.  Mr.  Fields,  most  gratefully  yours,     M.  R.  M. 


320  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 


1853. 

Swallowfield,  January  5, 1853. 

Your  most  welcome  letter,  my  very  dear  friend,  arrived  to-day, 
and  I  write  not  only  to  acknowledge  that,  and  your  constant  kind- 
ness, but  because,  if,  as  I  believe,  Mr.  Bennoch  has  told  you  of  my 
mischance,  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  from  my  own  hand  that  I  am 
going  on  well.  Last  Monday  fortnight  I  was  thrown  violently 
from  my  own  pony-chaise  upon  the  hard  road  in  Lady  Russell's 
park.  ISTo  bones  were  broken,  but  the  nerves  of  one  side  were  so 
terribly  bruised  and  lacerated,  and  the  shock  to  the  system  was  so 
great,  that  even  at  the  end  of  ten  days  Mr.  May  could  not  satisfy 
himself,  'without  a  most  minute  re-examination,  that  neither  fracture 
nor  dislocation  had  taken  place,  and  I  am  writing  to  you  at  this 
moment  with  my  left  arm  bound  tightly  to  my  body  and  no  power 
whatever  of  raising  either  foot  from  the  ground.  The  only  parts  of 
me  that  have  escaped  uninjured  are  my  head  and  my  right  hand, 
and  this  is  much.  -  Moreover  Mr.  May  says  that,  although  the  cure 
will  be  tedious,  he  sees  no  cause  to  doubt  my  recovering  altogether 
my  former  condition,  so  that  we  may  still  hope  to  drive  about  to- 
gether  when  you  come  back  to  England 

T  wrote  I  think,  deares*  friend,  to  thank  you  heartily  for  the 
beautiful  and  interesting  book  called  "  The  Homes  of  American 
Authors."  How  comfortably  they  are  housed,  and  how  glad  I  am 
to  find  that,  owing  to  Mr.  Hawthorne's  being  so  near  the  new  Pres- 
ident, and  therefore  keeping  up  the  habit  of  friendship  and  inter- 
course, the  want  of  which  habit  so  frequently  brings  college  friend- 
ship to  an  end,  he  is  likely  to  enter  into  public  life.  It  will  be  an 
excellent  thing  for  his  future  books,  —  the  fault  of  all  his  writings, 
in  spite  of  their  great  beauty,  being  a  want  of  reality,  of  the  actual, 
healthy,  every-day  life  which  is  a  necessary  element  in  literature. 
All  the  great  poets  have  it,  —  Homer,  Shakespeare,  Scott.  It  will 
be  the  very  best  school  for  our  pet  poet. 

Nobody  under  the  sun  has  so  much  right  as  you  have  to  see  Mr. 
Dillon's  book,  which  is  in  six  quarto  volumes,  not  one.  Our  dear 
friend  Mr.  Bennoch  knows  him,  and  tells  me  to-day  that  Mr.  Dillon 
has  invited  him  to  go  and  look  at  it.  He  has  just  received  it  from 
the  binders.  Of  course  Mr.  Eennoch  will  introduce  you.  I  was  so 
jrlad  to  read  what  looked  like  a  renewed  pledge  of  your  return  to 
England. 

Mr.  Bentley  has  sent  me  three  several  applications  for  a  second 
scries.     At  present  Mr.  May  forbids  all  composition,  but  I  suppose 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  321 


the  thing  will  be  done.  I  shall  introduce  some  chapters  on  French 
poetry  and  literature.  At  this  moment  I  am  in  full  chase  of  Casimer 
Delavigne's  ballads.  He  thought  so  little  of  them  that  he  published 
very  few  in  his  Poe"sies,  —  one  in  a  note,  —  and  several  of  the 
very  finest  not  at  all.     They  are  scattered  about  here  and  there. 

has  reproduced  two  (which  I  had)  in  his  Memories;  but  I 

want  all  that  can  be  found,  especially  one  of  which  the  refrain  is, 
"  Chez  l'Ambassadere  de  France."  I  was  such  a  fool,  when  I  read 
it  six  or  seven  years  ago,  as  not  to  take  a  copy.  Do  you  think  Mr. 
Hector  Bossange  could  help  me  to  that,  or  to  any  others  not  printed 
in  the  Memories?  ....  Of  course  I  shall  devote  one  chapter 
to  our  Emperor.  Ah,  how  much  better  is  such  a  government 
as  his  than  one  which  every  four  years  causes  a  sort  of  moral 
earthquake  ;  or  one  like  ours,  where  whole  sessions  are  passed 
in  squabbling !  The  loss  of  his  place  has  saved  Disraeli's  life,  for 
everybody  said  he  could  not  have  survived  three  months'  badger- 
ing in  the  House.  A  very  intimate  friend  of  his  (Mr.  Henry 
Drummond,  the  very  odd,  very  clever  member  for  Surrey)  says 
that  he  had  certainly  broken  a  bloodvessel.  One  piece  of  news  I 
have  heard  to-day  from  Miss  Goldsmid,  that  the  Jews  are  certain 
now  to  gain  their  point  and  be  admitted  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons ;  for  my  part,  I  hold  that  every  one  has  a  claim  to  his  civil 
rights,  were  he  Mahometan  or  Hindoo,  and  I  rejoice  that  poor  old 
Sir  Isaac,  the  real  author  of  the  movement,  will  probably  live  to 
see  it  accomplished.  The  thought  of  succeeding  at  last  in  the  pur- 
suit to  which  he  has  devoted  half  his  life  has  quite  revived  him. 

And  now  Heaven  bless  you,  my  very  dear  friend.  None  of  the 
poems  on  Wellington  are  to  be  compared  to  that  dirge  on  Webster. 
I  rejoice  that  my  article  should  have  pleased  his  family.  The  only 
bit  of  my  new  book  that  I  have  written  is  a  paper  on  Taylor  and 
Stoddard.     Say  everything  for  me  to  the  Ticknors  and  Nortons  and 

your  own  people,  the  W s. 

Ever  most  faithfully  and  affectionately  yours,        M.  R.  M. 

Swaiaowfield,  February  1, 1853. 

Ah,  my  dear  friend !  ask  Dr.  Holmes  what  these  severe  bruises 
and  lacerations  of  the  nerves  of  the  principal  joints  are,  and  he  will 
tell  you  that  they  are  much  more  slow  and  difficult  of  cure,  as  well 
as  more  painful,  than  half  a  dozen  broken  bones.  It  is  now  above 
six  weeks  since  that  accident,  and  although  the  shoulder  is  going 
on  favorably,  there  is  still  a  total  loss  of  muscular  power  in  the  lower 
limbs.  I  am  just  lifted  out  of  bed  and  wheeled  to  the  fireside,  and 
14*  u 


322  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


then  at  night  wheeled  back  and  lifted  into  bed,  —  without  the  power 
of  standing  for  a  moment,  or  of  putting  one  foot  before  the  other,  or 
of  turning  in  bed.  Mr.  May  says  that  warm  weather  will  probably 
do  much  for  me,  but  that  till  then  I  must  be  a  prisoner  to  my  room, 
for  that  if  rheumatism  supervenes  upon  my  present  inability,  there 
will  be  no  chance  of  getting  rid  of  it.  So  "patience  and  shuffle  the 
cards,"  as  a  good  man,  much  in  my  state,  the  contented  Marquess, 

says  in  Don  Quixote I  assure  you  I  am  not  out  of  spirits; 

indeed,  people  are  so  kind  to  me  that  it  would  be  the  basest  of 
all  ingratitude  if  I  were  not  cheerful  as  well  as  thankful.  I  think 
that  in  a  letter  which  you  must  have  received  by  this  time,  I  told 
you  how  it  came  about,  and  thanked  you  for  the  comely  book  which 
shows  how  cosily  America  lodges  my  brethren  of  the  quill.  Dr. 
Holmes  ought  to  have  been  there,  and  Dr.  Parsons,  but  their  time 
will  come  and  must.  Nothing  gratifies  me  more  than  to  find  how 
many  strangers,  writing  to  me  of  my  Recollections,  mention  Dr. 
Holmes,  classing  him  sometimes  with  Thomas  Davis,  sometimes 
with  Praed.  If  I  write  another  series  of  Recollections,  as,  when 
Mr.  May  will  let  me,  I  suppose  I  must,  I  shall  certainly  include  Dr. 

Parsons 

Has  anybody  told  you  the  terrible  story  of  that  boy,  Lord 
Ockham,  Lord  Byron's  grandson?  I  had  it  from  Mr.  Noel,  Lady 
Byron's  cousin-german  and  intimate  friend.  While  his  poor  mother 
was  dying  her  death  of  martyrdom  from  an  inward  cancer,  —  Mrs. 
Sartoris  (Adelaide  Kemble),  who  went  to  sing  to  her,  saw  her 
through  the  door,  which  was  left  open,  crouching  on  a  floor  covered 
with  mattresses,  on  her  hands  and  knees,  the  only  posture  she  could 
bear,  —  whilst  she  with  the  patience  of  an  angel  was  enduring  her 
long  agony,  her  husband,  engrossed  by  her,  left  this  lad  of  seventeen 
to  his  sister  and  the  governess.  It  was  a  dull  life,  and  he  ran  away. 
Mr.  Noel  (ray  friend's  brother,  from  whom  he  had  the  story)  knew 
most  of  the  youth,  who  had  been  for  a  long  time  staying  at  his 
house,  and  they  begged  him  to  undertake  the  search.  Lord 
Ockham  had  sent  a  carpet-bag  containing  his  gentleman's  clothes  to 
his  father,  Lord  Lovelace,  in  London ;  he  was  therefore  disguised, 
and  from  certain  things  he  had  said  Mr.  Noel  suspected  that  he 
intended  to  go  to  America.  Accordingly  he  went  first  to  Bristol, 
then  to  Liverpool,  leaving  his  description,  a  sort  of  written  portrait 
of  him,  with  the  police  at  both  places.  At  Liverpool  he  was  found 
before  long,  and  when  Mr.  Noel,  summoned  by  the  electric  tele- 
graph, reached  that  town,  he  found  him  dressed  as  a  sailor-boy  at  a 
low  public-house,  surrounded  by  seamen  of  both  nations,  and  enjoy- 


MISS  MITFORD.  323 

ing,  as  much  as  possible,  their  sailor  yarns.  He  had  given  his  money, 
£36,  to  the  landlord  to  keep;  had  desired  him  to  inquire  for  a  ship 
where  he  might  be  received  as  cabin-boy;  and  had  entered  into  a 
shrewd  bargain  for  his  board,  stipulating  that  he  should  have  over 
and  above  his  ordinary  rations  a  pint  of  beer  with  his  Sunday 
dinner.  The  landlord  did  not  cheat  him,  but  he  postponed  all 
engagements  under  the  expectation — seeing  that  he  was  clearly  a 
gentleman's  son  —  that  money  would  be  offered  for  his  recovery. 
The  worst  is  that  he  (Lord  Ockham)  showed  no  regret  for  the  sor- 
row and  disgrace  that  he  had  brought  upon  his  family  at  such  a 
time.  He  has  two  tastes  not  often  seen  combined,  —  the  love  of 
money  and  of  low  company.  One  wonders  how  he  will  turn  out. 
He  is  now  in  Paris,  after  which  he  is  to  re-enter  in  Green's  ship  (he 
had  served  in  one  before  )  for  a  twelvemonth,  and  to  leave  the  ser- 
vice or  remain  in  it  as  he  may  decide  then.  This  is  perfectly  true; 
Mr.  Noel  had  it  from  his  brother  the  very  day  before  he  wrote  it  to 
me.  He  says  that  Lady  Lovelace's  funeral  was  too  ostentatious. 
Escutcheons  and  silver  coronals  everywhere.  Lord  Lovelace's 
taste  that,  and  not  Lady  Byron's,  which  is  perfectly  simple.  You 
know  that  she  was  buried  in  the  same  vault  with  her  father,  whose 
coffin  and  the  box  containing  his  heart  were  in  perfect  preserva- 
tion. Scott's  only  grandson,  too,  is  just  dead  of  sheer  debauchery. 
Strange  !  As  if  one  generation  paid  in  vice  and  folly  for  the  genius 
of  the  past.  By  the  way,  are  you  not  charmed  at  the  Emperor's 
marriage  ?  To  restore  to  princes  honest  love  and  healthy  preference, 
instead  of  the  conventional  intermarriages  which  have  brought 
epilepsy  and  idiotism  and  madness  into  half  the  royal  families  of 
Christendom !  And  then  the  beauty  of  that  speech,  with  its  fine 
appeals  to  the  best  sympathies  of  our  common  nature!  I  am  proud 
of  him.  What  a  sad,  sad  catastrophe  was  that  of  young  Pierce ! 
I  won't  call  his  father  general,  and  I  hope  he  will  leave  it  off. 
With  us  it  is  a  real  offence  to  give  any  man  a  higher  rank  than 
belongs  to  him,  —  to  say  captain,  for  instance,  to  a  lieutenant,  —  and 
that  is  one  of  our  usages  which  it  would  be  well  to  copy.  But  we 
have  follies  enough,  God  knows ;  that  duchess  address,  with  all  its 
tuft-hunting  signatures,  is  a  thing  to  make  Englishwomen  ashamed. 
Well,  they  caught  it  deservedly  in  an  address  from  American  women, 
written  probably  by  some  very  clever  American  man.  No,  I 
have  not  seen  Longfellow's  lines  on  the  Duke.  One  gets  sick  of 
the  very  name.  Henry  is  exceedingly  fond  of  his  little  sister.  I 
remember  that  when  he  first  saw  the  snow  fall  in  large  flakes,  he 
would  have  it  that  it  was  a  shower  of  white  feathers.     Love  to  all 


324  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

my  dear  friends,  the  W s,  Mrs.  Sparks,  Dr.  Holmes,  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne.    Ever,  dearest  friend,  most  affectionately  yours, 

M.  R.   M. 

(1st  March,  1853.) 
The  numbers  for  the  election  of  President  of  France  in  favor  of 
Louis  Napoleon  were 

for       against 

7119791J1119 

Look  through  the  back  of  this  against  the  candle,  or  the  fire,  or 
any  light. 

Mr  very  dear  Friend  :  Having  a  note  to  send  to  Mrs.  Sparks, 
who  has  sent  me,  or  rather  whose  husband  has  sent  me,  two 
answers  to  Lord  Mahon,  which,  coming  through  a  country  book- 
seller, have,  I  suspect,  been  some  months  on  the  way,  I  cannot  help 
sending  it  enclosed  to  you,  that  I  may  have  a  chat  with  you  en 
passant,  —  the  last,  I  hope,  before  your  arrival.  If  you  have  not  seen 
the  above  curious  instance  of  figures  forming  into  a  word,  and  that 
word  into  a  prophecy,  I  think  it  will  amuse  you,  and  I  want  besides 
to  tell  you  some  of  the  on-dits  about  the  Empress.  A  Mr.  Huddle- 
stone,  the  head  of  one  of  our  great  Catholic  houses,  is  in  despair  at 
the  marriage.  He  had  been  desperately  in  love  with  her  for  two 
years  in  Spain,  —  had  followed  her  to  Paris,  —  was  called  back  to  Eng- 
land by  his  father's  illness,  and  was  on  the  point  of  crossing  the  Chan- 
nel, after  that  father's  death,  to  lay  himself  and  £  30,000  or  £  40,000 
a  year  at  her  feet,  when  the  Emperor  stepped  in  and  carried  off  the 
prize.  To  comfort  himself  he  has  got  a  portrait  of  her  on  horse- 
back, which  a  friend  of  mine  saw  the  other  day  at  his  house.  Mrs. 
Browning  writes  me  from  Florence :  "  I  wonder  if  the  Empress 
pleases  you  as  well  as  the  Emperor.  For  my  part,  I  approve  alto- 
gether, and  none  the  less  that  he  has  offended  Austria  by  the  mode 
of  announcement.  Every  cut  of  the  whip  on  the  face  of  Austria  is 
an  especial  compliment  to  me,  or  so  I  feel  it.  Let  him  heed  the 
democracy,  and  do  his  duty  to  the  world,  and  use  to  the  utmost  his 
great  opportunities.  Mr.  Cobden  and  the  peace  societies  are  pleas- 
ing me  infinitely  just  now  in  making  head  against  the  immorality 
—  that's  the  word  —  of  the  English  press.  The  tone  taken  up 
towards  France  is  immoral  in  the  highest  degree,  and  the  invasion 
cry  would  be  idiotic  if  it  were  not  something  worse.  The  Empress, 
I  heard  the  other  day  from  high  authority,  is  charming  and  good  at 
heart.  She  was  brought  up  at  a  respectable  school  at  Clifton,  and 
is  very  English,  which  does  not  prevent  her  from  shooting  with 


MISS   MITFORD.  325 

pistols,  leaping  gates,  driving  four  in  hand,  and  upsetting  the  carriage 
if  the  frolic  requires  it,  —  as  brave  as  a  lion  and  as  true  as  a  dog. 
Her  complexion  is  like  marble,  white,  pale,  and  pure,  —  the  hair  light, 
rather  sandy,  they  say,  and  she  powders  it  with  gold  dust  for  effect ; 
but  there  is  less  physical  and  more  intellectual  beauty  than  is  generally 
attributed  to  her.  She  is  a  woman  of  very  decided  opinions.  I  like 
all  that,  don't  you  ?  and  I  like  her  letter  to  the  press,  as  everybody 
must."  Besides  this,  I  have  to-day  a  letter  from  a  friend  in  Paris, 
who  says  that  "  everybody  feels  her  charm,"  and  that  "  the  Emperor, 
when  presenting  her  at  the  balcony  on  the  wedding-day,  looked 
radiant  with  happiness."  My  Parisian  friend  says  that  young  Alex- 
andre Dumas  is  amongst  the  people  arrested  for  libel.  —  a  thorough 
mauvais  sujet.  Laniartine  is  quite  ruined,  and  forced  to  sell  his  estates. 
He  was  always,  I  believe,  expensive,  like  all  those  French  littera- 
teurs. You  don't  happen  to  have  in  Boston  —  have  you  ?  —  a  copy 
of  "  Les  Memoires  de  Lally  Tollendal "  ?  I  think  they  are  different 
publications  in  defence  of  his  father,  published,  some  in  London 
during  the  Emigration,  some  in  Paris  after  the  Restoration.  What  I 
want  is  an  account  of  the  retreat  from  Pondicherie.  I  '11  tell  you  why 
some  day  here.  Mrs.  Browning  is  most  curious  about  your  rap- 
pings,  —  of  which  I  suppose  you  believe  as  much  as  I  do  of  the 
Cock  Lane  Ghost,  whose  doings,  by  the  way,  they  much  resemble. 

1  liked  Mrs.  Tyler's  letter  ;  at  least  I  liked  it  much  better  than  the 
one  to  which  it  was  an  answer,  although  I  hold  it  one  of  our  best 
female  privileges  to  have  no  act  or  part  in  such  matters. 

Now  you  will  be  sorry  to  have  a  very  bad  account  of  me. 
Three  weeks  ago  frost  and  snow  set  in  here,  and  ever  since  I  have 
been  unable  to  rise  or  stand,  or  put  one  foot  before  another,  and  the 
pain  is  much  worse  than  at  first.  I  suppose  rheumatism  has  super- 
vened upon  the  injured  nerve.     G-od  bless  you.     Love  to  all. 

Ever  faithfully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Swallowpield,  March  17, 1853. 
My  dear  Friend  :  I  cannot  enough  thank  you  for  your  most  kind 
and  charming  letter.  Your  letters,  and  the  thoughts  of  you,  and  the 
hope  that  you  will  coax  your  partners  into  the  hazardous  experi- 
ment of  letting  you  come  to  England,  help  to  console  me  under  this 
long  confinement ;  for  here  I  am  at  near  Easter  still  a  close  prisoner 
from  the  consequences  of  the  accident  that  took  place  before 
Christmas.  I  have  only  once  left  my  room,  and  that  only  to  the 
opposite  chamber  to  have  this  cleaned,  and  I  got  such  a  chill  that  it 
brought  back  all  the  pain  and  increased  all   the  weakness.     But 


32  0  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

when  fine  weather — warm,  genial,  sunny  weather  —  comes,  I  will 
get  clown  in  some  way  or  other,  and  trust  myself  to  that  which  never 
hurts  any  one,  the  honest  open  air.  Spring,  and  even  the  approach 
of  spring,  has  upon  me  something  the  effect  that  England  has  upon 
you.  It  sets  me  dreaming,  —  I  see  leafy  hedges  in  my  dreams,  and 
flowery  banks,  and  then  I  long  to  make  the  vision  a  reality.  I 
remember  that  Fanchon's  father,  Flush,  who  was  a  famous  sporting 
dog,  used,  at  the  approach  of  the  covering  season,  to  quest  in  his 
sleep,  doubtless  by  the  same  instinct  that  works  in  me.  So,  as  soon 
as  the  sun  tells  the  same  story  with  the  primroses.  I  shall  make  a 
descent  after  some  fashion,  and  no  doubt,  aided  by  Sam's  stalwart 
arm,  successfully.  In  the  mean  while  I  have  one  great  pleasure  in 
store,  be  the  weather  what  it  may  ;  for  next  Saturday  or  the  Satur- 
day after  I  shall  see  dear  Mr.  Bennoch.  We  have  not  met  since 
November,  although  he  has  written  to  me  again  and  again.  He 
will  take  this  letter,  and  I  trouble  you  with  a  note  to  kind  Mrs. 
Sparks,  who  is  about  to  send  me,  or  rather  who  has  sent  me,  some 
American  cracknels,  which  have  not  yet  arrived.  To-day,  too,  I  had 
a  charming  letter  from  Lasswade,  — not  the  letter,  the  pamphlet 
one,  but  one  full  of  kindness  from  father  and  daughter,  written  by 
Miss  Margaret  to  ask  after  me  with  a  reality  of  interest  which  one 
feels  at  once.  It  gave  me  pleasure  in  another  way  too ;  Mr.  De 
Quincey  is  of  my  faith  and  delight  in  the  Emperor  !  Is  not  that 
delightful  ?     Also  he  holds  in   great  abomination  that  blackest  of 

iniquities ,  my  heresy  as  to  which  nearly  cost  me  an  idolator 

t'  other  day,  a  lady  from  Essex,  who  came  here  to  take  a  house  in 
my  neighborhood  to  be  near  me.  She  was  so  shocked  that,  if  we 
had  not  met  afterwards,  when  I  regained  my  ground  a  little  by 
certain  congenialities  she  certainly  would  have  abjured  me  forever. 

Well !  no  offence  to  Mrs. .     1  had  rather  in  a  literary  question 

agree  with  Thomas  De  Quincey  than  with  her  and  Queen  Victoria, 
who,  always  fond  of  strong  not  to  say  coarse  excitements,  is 
amongst 's  warm  admirers.  I  knew  you  would  like  the  Empe- 
ror's marriage.  I  heard  last  week  from  a  stiff  English  lady,  who 
had  been  visiting  one  of  the  Empress's  ladies  of  honor,  that  one 
day  at  St.  Cloud  she  shot  thirteen  brace  of  partridges ;  "  but,"  added 
the  narrator,  "  she  is  so  sweet  and  charming  a  creature  that  any 
man  might  fall  in  love  with  her  notwithstanding."  To  be  sure  Mr. 
Thackeray  liked  you.  How  couid  he  help  it  ?  Did  not  he  also  like 
Dr.  Holmes?  I  hope  so.  How  glad  I  should  be  to  see  him  in 
England,  and  how  glad  I  shall  be  to  see  Mr.  Hawthorne  !  He  will 
find   all  the  best  judges  of  English  writing  admiring  him  to  his 


MISS   MIT  FORD.  327 


heart's  content,  warmly  and  discriminatingly;  and  a  consulship  in  a 
bustling  town  will  give  him  the  cheerful  reality,  the  healthy  air  of 
every-day  life,  which  is  his  only  want.     Will  you  tell  all  these  dear 

friends,  especially  Mr.  and  Mrs.   W ,  how  deeply   I   feel  their 

affectionate  sympathy,  and  thank  Mr.  Whittier  and  Professor  Long- 
fellow over  and  over  again  for  their  kind  condolence?  Tell  Mr. 
Whittier  how  much  I  shall  prize  his  book.  He  has  an  earnest 
admirer  in  Buckingham  Palace,  Marianne  Skerrett,  known  as  the 
Queen's  Miss  Skerrett,  the  lady  chiefly  about  her,  and  the  only  one 
to  whom  she  talks  of  books.  Miss  Skerrett  is  herself  a  very  clever 
woman,  and  holds  Mr.  Whittier  to  be  not  only  the  greatest,  but  the 
one  poet  of  America;  which  last  assertion  the  poet  himself  would,  I 
suspect,  be  the  very  first  to  deny.  Your  promise  of  Dr.  Parsons's 
poem  is  very  delightful  to  me.  I  hold  firm  to  my  admiration  of 
those  stanzas  on  Webster.  Nothing  written  on  the  Duke  came 
within  miles  of  it,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  poem  on  Dante's  bust 

is  equally  fine Mr.  Justice  Talfourd  has  just  printed  a  new 

tragedy.  He  sent  it  to  me  from  Oxford,  not  from  Reading,  where 
he  had  passed  four  days  and  never  gave  a  copy  to  any  mortal,  and 
told  me,  in  a  very  affectionate  letter  which  accompanied  it,  that  "  it 
was  at  present  a  very  private  sin,  he  having  only  given  eight  or  ten 
copies  in  all."  I  suppose  that  it  will  be  published,  fori  observe  that 
the  "  not  published  "  is  written,  not  printed,  and  that  Moxon's  name 
is  on  the  title-page.  It  is  called  "  The  Castilian,"  —  is  on  the  story  of 
a  revolt  headed  by  Don  John  de  Padilla  in  the  early  part  of  Charles 
the  Filth's  reign,  and  is  more  like  Ion  than  either  of  his  other  trage- 
dies. I  have  just  been  reading  a  most  interesting  little  book  in 
manuscript,  called  "  The  Heart  of  Montrose."  It  is  a  versification  in 
three  ballads  of  a  very  striking  letter  in  Napier's  "  Life  and  Times  of 
Montrose,"  by  the  young  lady  who  calls  herself  Mary  Maynard.  It 
is  really  a  little  book  that  ought  to  make  a  noise,  not  too  long,  full 
of  grace  and  of  interest,  and  she  has  adhered  to  the  true  story  with 
excellent  taste,  that  story  being  a  very  remarkable  union  of  the 
romantic  and  the  domestic.     I  am  afraid  that  my  other  young  poet, 

,  is  dying  of  consumption;  those  fine  spirits  often  fall  in  that 

way.  I  have  just  corrected  my  book  for  a  cheaper  edition.  Mr. 
Bentley  is  very  urgent  for  a  second  series,  and  I  suppose  I  must  try. 
I  shall  get  you  to  write  for  me  to  Mr.  Hector  Bossange  when  you 
come,  for  come  you  must.  My  eyes  begin  to  feel  the  effects  of  this 
long  confinement  to  one  smoky  and  dusty  room. 

So  far  had  I  written,  dearest  friend,  when  this  day  (March  26) 
brought  me  your  most  kind  and  welcome  letter  enclosed  in  another 


328  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

from  dear  Mr.  Bennoch.  Am  I  to  return  Dr.  Parsons's  ?  or  shall  I 
keep  it  till  you  come  to  fetch  it  ?  Tell  the  writer  how  very  much  I  prize 
his  kindness,  none  the  less  that  he  likes  (as  I  do)  my  tragedies,  that 
is,  one  of  them,  the  best  of  my  poor  doings.  The  lines  on  the  Duchess 
are  capital,  and  quite  what  she  deserves ;  but  I  think  those  the  worst 
who,  in  so  true  a  spirit  of  what  Carlyle  would  call  flunkeyism,  con- 
sent to  sign  any  nonsense  that  their  names  may  figure  side  by  side 
with  that  of  a  duchess,  and  they  themselves  find  (for  once)  an  admit- 
tance to  the  gilded  saloons  of  Stafford  House.  For  my  part,  I  well- 
nigh  lost  an  admirer  the  other  day  by  taking  a  common-sense  view 
of  the  question.  A  lady  (whose  name  I  never  heard  till  a  week  ago) 
came  here  to  take  a  house  to  be  near  me.  (1ST.  B.  There  was  none 
to  be  had.)     Well,  she  was  so  provoked  to  find  that  I  had  stopped 

short  of  the  one  hundredth  page  of ,  and  never  intended  to  read 

another,  that  I  do  think,  if  we  had  not  discovered  some  sympathies 
to  counterbalance  that  grand  difference —  As  I  live,  I  have  told 
you  that  story  before !  Ah !  I  am  sixty-six,  and  I  get  older 
every  day !  So  does  little  Henry,  who  is  at  home  just  now,  and 
longing  to  put  the  clock  forward  that  he  may  go  to  America. 
He  is  a  boy  of  great  promise,  full  of  sound  sense,  and  as  good  as 
good  can  be.  I  suppose  that  he  never  in  his  life  told  an  untruth,  or 
broke  a  promise,  or  disobeyed  a  command.  He  is  very  fond  of  his 
little  sister;  and  not  at  all  jealous  either — to  the  great  praise  of 
that  four-footed  lady  be  it  said  —  is  Fanchon,  who  watches  over 
the  cradle,  and  is  as  fond  of  the  baby  in  her  way  as  Henry  in  his. 
So  far  from  paying  me  copyright  money,  all  that  I  ever  received 

from  Mr.  B was  two  copies  of  his  edition  of  "  Our  Village,"  one 

of  which  I  gave  away,  and  of  the  other  some  chance  visitor  has 
taken  one  of  the  volumes.  I  really  do  think  I  shall  ask  him  for  a 
copy  or  two.  How  can  I  ever  thank  you  enough  for  your  infinite 
kindness  in  sending  me  books!  Thank  you  again  and  again.  Dear 
Mr.  Bennoch  has  been  making  an  admirable  speech,  in  moving  to 
present  the  thanks  of  the  city  to  Mr.  Layard.  How  one  likes  to 
feel  proud  of  one's  friends !     G-od  bless  you  ! 

Ever  most  faithfully  yours,  M.  B.  M. 

Kind  Mrs.  Sparks's  biscuits  arrived  quite  safe.     How  droll  some 

of  the  cookery  is  in    "  The  Wide,  Wide  World "  !     It  would   try 

English  stomachs  by  its  over-richness.     I  wonder  you  are  not  all 

dead,  if  such  be  your  cuisine. 

Swallowfield,  May  3, 1853. 

How  shall  I  thank  you  enough,  dear  and  kind  friend,  for  the  copy 

of that  arrived  here  yesterday  !     Very  like,  only  it  wanted 


MISS  MITFORD.  329 


what  that  great  painter,  the  sun,  will  never  arrive  at  giving,  the 
actual  look  of  life  which  is  the  one  great  charm  of  the  human  coun- 
tenance. Strange  that  the  very  source  of  light  should  fail  in  giving 
that  light  of  the  face,  the  smile.  However,  all  that  can  be  given  by 
that  branch  of  art  has  been  given.  I  never  before  saw  so  good  a 
photographic  portrait,  and  for  one  that  gives  more  I  must  wait  until 
John  Lucas,  or  some  American  John  Lucas,  shall  coax  you  into  sit- 
ting. I  scut  you.  ten  days  ago,  a  batch  of  notes,  and  a  most  unworthy 
letter  of  thanks  for  one  of  your  parcels  of  gift-books;  an  1  I  write 
the  rather  now  to  tell  you  I  am  better  than  then,  and  hope  to  be  in  a 
still  better  plight  before  July  or  August,  when  a  most  welcome  letter 
from  Mr.  Tuckerman  has  bidden  us  to  expect  you  to  officiate  as 
Master  of  the  Ceremonies  to  Mr.  Hawthorne,  who,  welcome  for 
himself,  will  be  trebly  welcome  for  such  an  introducer. 

Now  let  me  say  how  much  I  like  De  Quihcey's  new  volumes.  The 
"Wreck  of  a  Household  "  shows  great  power  of  narrative,  ifhe  would 
but  take  the  trouble  to  be  right  as  to  details ;  the  least  and  lowest 
part  of  the  art,  that  of  interesting  you  in  his  people,  he  has.  And 
those  "  Last  Days  of  Kant,"  how  affecting  they  are,  and  how  thor- 
oughly in  every  line  and  in  every  thought,  agree  with  him  or  not, 
(and  in  all  that  relates  to  Napoleon  I  differ  from  him,  as  in  his 
overestimate  of  Wordsworth  and  of  Coleridge),  one  always  feels 
how  thoroughly  and  completely  he  is  a  gentleman  as  well  as  a 
great  writer;  and  so  much  has  that  to  do  with  my  admiration, 
that  I  have  come  to  tracing  personal  character  in  books  almost 
as  a  test  of  literary  merit;  Charles  Boner's  "Chamois-Hunting," 
for  instance,  owes  a  great  part  of  its  charm  to  the  resolute  truth 
of  the  writer,  and  a  great  drawback  from  the  attraction  of  "My 
Novel  "  seems  to  me  to  be  derived  from  the  hlasd  feeling,  the 
unclean  mind  from  whence  it  springs,  felt  most  when  trying  after 
moralities. 

Amongst  your  bounties  I  was  much  amused  with  the  New  York 
magazines,  the  curious  turning  up  of  a  new  claimant  to  the  Louis- 
the-Seventeent'h  pretension  amongst  the  Red  Indians,  and  the  rap- 
pings  and  pencil-writings  of  the  new  Spiritualists.  One  should 
wonder  most  at  the  believers  in  these  two  branches  of  faith,  if  that 
particular  class  did  not  always  seem  to  be  provided  most  abundantly 
whenever  a  demand  occurs.  Only  think  of  Mrs.  Browning  giving 
the  most  unlimited  credence  to  every  "  rapping  "  story  which  any- 
body can  tell  her !  Did  I  tell  you  that  the  work  on  which  she  is 
engaged  is  a  fictitious  autobiography  in  blank  verse,  the  heroine  a 
woman  artist  (I  suppose  singer  or  actress),  and  the  tone  intensely 


S3o  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

modern  ?  You  will  see  that  "  Colombe's  Birthday  "  has  been  brought 
out  at  the  Haymarket.  Mr.  Chorley  (Robert  Browning's  most  in- 
timate friend)  writes  me  word  that  Mrs.  Martin  (Helen  Faucit,  at 
whose  persuasion  it  was  acted)  told  him  that  it  had  gone  off  "  better 
than  she  expected."  Have  you  seen  Alexander  Smith's  book,  which 
is  all  the  rage  just  now  ?  I  saw  some  extracts  from  his  poems  a  year 
and  a  half  ago,  and  the  whole  book  is  like  a  quantity  of  extracts  put 
together  without  any  sort  of  connection,  a  mass  of  powerful  metaphor 
with  scarce  any  lattice- work  for  the  honeysuckles  to  climb  upon. 
Keats  was  too  much  like  this;  but  then  Keats  was  the  first.  Now 
•this  book,  admitting  its  merit  in  a  certain  way,  is  but  the  imitation 
of  a  school,  and,  in  my  mind,  a  bad  school.  One  such  poem  as  that 
on  the  bust  of  Dante  is  worth  a  whole  wilderness  of  these  new 
writers,  the  very  best  of  them.  Certainly  nothing  better  than  those 
•two  pages  ever  crossed  the  Atlantic. 

God  bless  you,  dear  friend.     Say  everything  for  me  to  dear  Mr. 

and  Mrs.  W ,  to  Dr.  Holmes,  to  Dr.  Parsons,  to  Mr.  Whittier, 

(how  powerful  his  new  volume  is  !)  to  Mr.  Stoddard,  to  Mrs.  Sparks, 
lo  all  my  friends. 

Ever  most  affectionately  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

I  am  writing  on  the  8th  of  May,  but  where  is  the  May  of  the 
poets?  Half  the  morning  yesterday  it  snowed,  at  night  there  was 
ice  as  thick  as  a  shilling,  and  to-day  it  is  absolutely  as  cold  as  Christ- 
mas. Of  course  the  leaves  refuse  to  unfold,  the  nightingales  can 
hardly  be  said  to  sing,  even  the  hateful  cuckoo  holds  his  peace.  I 
am  hoping  to  see  dear  Mr.  Bennoch  soon  to  supply  some  glow  and 
warmth. 

Swallowfield,  June  4,  1853. 
I  write  at  once,  dearest  friend,  to  acknowledge  your  most  kind  and 
welcome  letter.  I  am  better  than  when  I  wrote  last,  and  get  out 
almost  every  day  for  a  very  slow  and  quiet  drive  round  our  lovely 
lanes;  far  more  lovely  than  last  year,  since  the  foliage  is  quite  as 
thick  again,  and  all  the  flowery  trees,  aloes,  laburnums,  horse-chest- 
nuts, acacias,  honeysuckles,  azalias,  rhododendrons,  hawthorns,  are 
one  mass  of  blossoms,  —  literal^  the  leaves  are  hardly  visible,  so 
that  the  color,  whenever  we  come  upon  park,  shrubbery,  or  plan- 
tation, is  such  as  should  be  seen  to  be  imagined.  In  my  long  life 
I  never  knew  such  a  season  of  flowers ;  so  the  wet  winter  and 
the  cold  spring  have  their  compensation.    I  get  out  in  this  way  with 

Sam  and  K and  the  baby,  and  it  gives  me  exquisite  pleasure,  and 

if  you  were  here  the  pleasure  would  be  multiplied  a  thousand  fold 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  331 


by  your  society  ;  but  I  do  not  gain  strength  in  the  least.  Attempt- 
ing to  do  a  little  more  and  take  some  young  people  to  the  gates  of 
Whiteknights,  which,  without  my  presence,  would  be  closed,  proved 
too  far  and  too  rapid  a  movement,  and  for  two  days  I  could  not  stir 
for  excessive  soreness  all  over  the  body.  I  am  still  lifted  down  stairs 
step  by  step,  and  it  is  an  operation  of  such  time  (it  takes  half  an 
hour  to  get  me  down  that  one  flight  of  cottage  stairs),  such  pain, 
such  fatigue,  and  such  difficulty,  that,  unless  to  get  out  in  the  pony- 
chaise,  I  do  not  attempt  to  leave  my  room.  I  am  still  lifted  into 
bed,  and  can  neither  turn  nor  move  in  any  way  when  there,  am 
wheeled  from  the  stairs  to  the  pony-carriage,  cannot  walk  three 
steps,  can  hardly  stand  a  moment,  and  in  rising  from  my  chair  am 
Bometimes  ten  minutes,  often  longer.  So  you  see  that  I  am  very,  very 
feeble  and  infirm.  Still  I  feel  sound  at  heart  and  clear  in  head,  am 
quite  as  cheerful  as  ever,  and,  except  that  I  get  very  much  sooner 
exhausted,  enjoy  society  as  much  as  ever,  so  you  must  come  if  only 
to  make  me  well.  I  do  verily  believe  your  coming  would  do  me 
more  good  than  anything. 

I  was  much  interested  by  your  account  of  the  poor  English  stage 
coachman.  Ah,  these  are  bad  days  for  stage  coachmen  on  both 
sides  the  Atlantic  !  Do  you  remember  his  name  ?  and  do  you  know 
whether  he  drove  between  London  and  Reading,  or  between  Read- 
ing and  Basingstoke  ?  —  a  most  useless  branch  railroad  between  the 
two  latter  places,  constructed  by  the  Great  Western  simply  out  of 
spite  to  the  Southwestern,  which  I  am  happy  to  state  has  never  yet 
paid  its  daily  expenses,  to  say  nothing  of  the  cost  of  construction, 
and  has  taken  everything  off  our  road,  which  before  abounded  in 
coaches,  carriers,  and  conveyances  of  all  sorts.  The  vile  railway 
does  us  no  earthly  good,  we  being  above  four  miles  from  the  nearest 
station,  and  you  may  imagine  how  much  inconvenience  the  absence 
of  stated  communication  with  a  market  town  causes  to  our  small 
family,  especially  now  that  I  can  neither  spare  Sam  nor  the  pony  to 
go  twelve  miles.  You  must  come  to  England  and  come  often  to  see 
me,  just  to  prove  that  there  is  any  good  whatever  m  railways,  —  a 
fact  I  am  often  inclined  to  doubt. 

I  shall  send  this  letter  to  be  forwarded  to  Mr.  Bennett,  and  desire 
him  to  write  to  you  himself.  He  is,  as  you  say,  an  "excellent 
youth,"  although  it  is  ''ery  generous  in  me  to  say  so,  for  I  do  believe 
that  you  came  to  see  me  since  he  has  been.  Dear  Mr.  Bennoch, 
with  all  his  multifarious  business,  has  been  again  and  again.  God 
bless  him  !  .  .To  return  to  Mr  Bennett.  He  has  been  engaged 
in  a  grand  battle  with  the  trustees  of  an  old  charity  .school,  pr-u- 


332  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

cipally  the  vicar.  His  two  brothers  helped  in  the  fight.  They  won 
a  notable  victory.  They  were  quite  right  in  the  matter  in  dispute, 
and  the  "  excellent  youth  "  came  out  well  in  various  letters.  His 
opponent,  the  vicar,  was  Senior  Wrangler  at  our  Cambridge,  the  very 
highest  University  honor  in  England,  and  tutor  to  the  present  Lord 
Grrey. 

B}r  the  way,  Mr. wrote  to  me  the  other  day  to  ask  that  I 

would  let  him  be  here  when  Mr.  Hawthorne  comes  to  see  me.  I 
only  answered  this  request  by  asking  whether  he  did  not  intend  to 
come  to  see  me  before  that  time,  for  certainly  he  might  come  to  visit 
an  old  friend,  especially  a  sick  one,  for  her  own  sake,  and  not  merely 
to  meet  a  notability,  and  I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  Mr.  Hawthorne 
might  not  prefer  to  come  alone  or  with  dear  Mr.  Bennoch;  at  all 
events  it  ought  to  be  left  to  his  choice,  and  besides  I  have  not  lost 
the  hope  of  your  being  the  introducer  of  the  great  romancer,  and 
then  how  little  should  I  want  anybody  to  come  between  us.  Begin 
as  they  may,  all  my  paragraphs  slide  into  that  refrain  of  Pray,  pray 
come ! 

I  have  written  to  you  about  other  kindnesses  since  that  note  full 
of  hopes,  but  I  do  not  think  that  I  did  write  to  thank  you  for  dear 
Dr.  Holmes's  "  Lecture  on  English  Poetesses,"  or  rather  the  analysis 
of  a  lecture  which  sins  only  by  over-gallantry.  Ah,  there  is  a  dif- 
ference between  the  sexes,  and  the  difference  is  the  reverse  way  to 
that  in  which  he  puts  it  I  Tell  him  I  sent  his  charming  stanzas  on 
Moore  to  a  leading  member  of  the  Irish  committee  for  raising  a 
monument  to  his  memory,  ai_d  that  they  were  received  with  enthu- 
siasm by  the  Irish  friends  of  the  poet.  I  have  sent  them  to  many 
persons  in  England  worthy  to  be  so  honored,  and  the  very  cleverest 
woman  whom  I  have  ever  known  (Miss  G-oldsmid)  wrote  to  me  only 
yesterday  to  thank  me  for  sending  her  that  exquisite  poem,  adding, 
"  I  think  the  stanza  '  If  on  his  cheek,  etc.,'  contains  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  similes  to  be  found  in  the  whole  domain  of  poetry."  I 
also  told  Mrs.  Browning  what  dear  Dr.  Holmes  said  of  her.  The 
American  poets  whom  she  prefers  are  Lowell  and  Emerson.  Now 
I  know  something  of  Lowell  and  of  Emerson,  but  I  hold  that  those 
lines  on  Dante's  bust  are  amongst  the  finest  ever  written  in  the  lan- 
guage, whether  by  American  or  Englishman;  don't  you?  And 
what  a  grand  Dead  March  is  the  poem  on  Webster !  .  .  .  .  Also 
Mrs.  Browning  believes  in  spirit-rapping  stories,  —  all,  —  and  tells 
me  that  Bobert  Owen  has  been  converted  by  them  to  a  belief  in  a 
future  state.  Everybody  everywhere  is  turning  tables.  The  young 
Russells,  who  are  surcharged  with  electricity,  set  them  spinning  in 


MISS  MITFORD.  333 


ten  minutes.  In  general,  you  know,  it  is  usual  to  take  off  all  articles 
of  metal.  They,  the  other  night,  took  a  fanny  to  remove  their  rings 
and  bracelets,  and,  having  done  so,  the  table,  which  had  paused  for 
a  moment,  began  whirling  again  as  last  as  ever  the  contrary  way. 
This  is  a  fact,  and  a  curious  one. 

I  have  lent  three  volumes,  of  your  "  De  Quincey  "  to  my  young 
friend,  -I nines  Payn,  a  poet  of  very  high  promise,  who  has  verified 
the  Green  story,  and  taken  the  books  with  him  to  the  Lakes.  God 
grant,  my  dear  friend,  that  you  may  not  lose  by  "  Our  Village  "  ; 
that  is  what  I  care  for. 

Ever  faithfully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Swallowiield,  June  23, 1853. 
Ah,  my  very  dear  friend,  we  shall  not  see  you  this  summer,  I  am 
sure.  For  the  first  time  I  clearly  perceive  the  obstacle,  and  I  feel 
that  unless  some  chance  should  detain  Mr.  Ticknor,  we  must  give  up 
the  great  happiness  of  seeing  you  till  next  year.  I  wonder  whether 
your  poor  old  friend  will  be  alive  to  greet  you  then  I  Well,  that  is 
as  God  pleases;  in  the  meantime  be  assured  that  you  have  been  one 
of  the  chief  comforts  and  blessings  of  these  latter  years  of  my  life, 
not  only  in  your  own  friendship  and  your  thousand  kindnesses,  but 
in  the  kindness  and  friendship  of  dear  Mr.  Bennoch,  which,  in  the 
first  instance,  I  mainly  owe  to  you.  I  am  in  somewhat  better  trim, 
although  the  getting  out  of  doors  and  into  the  pony-carriage,  from 
which  Mr.  May  hoped  such  great  things,  has  hardly  answered  his 
expectations.  I  am  not  stronger,  and  I  am  so  nervous  that  I  can 
only  bear  to  be  driven,  or  more  ignominiously  still  to  be  led,  at  a 
foot's  pace  through  the  lanes.  I  am  still  unable  to  stand  or  walk, 
unless  supported  by  Sam's  strong  hands  lifting  me  up  on  each  side, 
still  obliged  to  be  lifted  into  bed,  and  unable  to  turn  or  move  when 
there,  the  worst  grievance  of  all.  However,  I  am  in  as  good  spirits 
as  ever,  and  just  at  this  moment  most  comfortably  seated  under  the 
acacia-tree  at  the  corner  of  my  house,  —  the  beautiful  acacia  literally 
loaded  with  its  snowy  chains  (the  flowering  trees  this  summer, 
lilacs,  laburnums,  rhododendrons,  azalias,  have  been  one  mass  of 
blossoms,  and  none  are  so  graceful  as  this  waving  acacia) ;  on  one 
side  a  syringa,  smelling  and  looking  like  an  orange-tree ;  a  jar  of  roses 
on  the  table  before  me,  —  fresh-gathered  roses,  the  pride  of  Sam's 
heart ;  and  little  Fanchon  at  my  feet,  too  idle  to  eat  the  biscuits  with 
which  I  am  trying  to  tempt  her,  —  biscuits  from  Boston,  sent  to  me 
by  Mrs.  Sparks,  whose  kindness  is  really  indefatigable,  and  which 
Fanchon  ought  to  like  upon  that  principle  if  upon  no  other,  but  you 


334  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

know  her  laziness  of  old,  and  she  improves  in  it  every  day.  Well, 
that  is  a  picture  of  the  Swallowfield  cottage  at  this  moment,  and  I 

wish  that  you  and  the  Bennochs  and  the  W s  and  Mr.  Whipple 

were  here  to  add  to  its  life  and  comfort.  You  must  come  next  year, 
and  come  in  May,  that  you  and  dear  Mr.  Bennoch  may  hear  the 
nightingales  together.  He  has  never  heard  them,  and  this  year  they 
have  been  faint  and  feeble  (as  indeed  they  were  last)  compared  with 
their  usual  song.  Now  they  are  over,  and  although  I  expect  him 
next  week,  it  will  be  too  late. 

Precious  fooling  that  has  been  at  Stafford  House  !     And  our - 

who  delights  in  strong,  not  to  say  worse,  emotions,  whose  chief 
pleasure  it  was  to  see  the  lions  fed  in  Van  Amburgh's  time,  who 
went  seven  times  to  see  the  Ghost  in  the  "  Corsican  Brothers,"  and 
has  every  sort  of  natural  curiosity  (not  to  say  wonder)  brought  to 
her  at  Buckingham  Palace,  was  in  a  state  of  exceeding  misery  be- 
cause she  could  not,  consistently  with  her  amicable  relations  with 
the  United  States,  receive  Mrs. there.  (Ah !  our  dear  Em- 
peror has  better  taste.  Heaven  bless  him !)  From  Lord  Shaftesbury 
one  looks  for  unmitigated  cant,  but  I  did  expect  better  things  of 
Lord  Carlisle.  How  many  names  that  both  you  and  I  know  went 
there  merely  because  the  owner  of  the  house  was  a  fashionable 

Duchess,  —  the  Wilmers  ("  though  they  are  my  friends  "),  the  P s 

and !     For  my  part,  I  have  never  read  beyond  the  first  one 

hundred  pages,  and  have  a  certain  malicious  pleasure  in  so  saying. 
Let  me  add  that  almost  all  the  clever  men  whom  I  have  seen  are  of 
the  same  faction ;  they  took  up  the  book  and  laid  it  down  again. 
Do  you  ever  reprint  French  books,  or  ever  get  them  translated  ? 
By  very  far  the  most  delightful  work  that  I  have  read  for  many 
years  is  Sainte-Beuve's  "  Causeries  du  Lundi,"  or  his  weekly  feuille- 
tons  in  the  "  Constitutionnel."  I  am  sure  they  would  sell  if  there 
be  any  taste  for  French  literature.  It  is  so  curious,  so  various,  so 
healthy,  so  catholic  in  its  biography  and  criticism ;  but  it  must  be 
well  done  by  some  one  who  writes  good  English  prose  and  knows 
well  the  literary  history  of  France.  Don't  trust  women;  they, 
especially  the  authoresses,  are  as  ignorant  as  dirt.  Just  as  I  had  got 
to  this  point,  Mr.  Willmot  came  to  spend  the  evening,  and  very 
singularly  consulted  me  about  undertaking  a  series  of  English  Por- 
traits Litteraires,  like  Sainte-Beuve's  former  works.  He  will  do  it 
well,  and  I  commended  him  to  the  charming  "  Causeries,"  and  ad- 
vised him  to  make  that  a  weekly  article,  as  no  doubt  he  could.  It 
would  only  tell  the  better  for  the  wide  diffusion.  He  does,  you 
know,    the  best  criticism  of  The  Times.      I  have  most  charming 


MISS  MITFORD.  335 


letters  from  Dr.  Parsons  and  dear  Mr.  Whittier.     His  cordiality  is 
delightful.     God  bless  you. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

(No  date.) 

Never,  my  dear  friend,  did  I  expect  to  like  so  well  a  man  who 
came  in  your  place,  as  I  do  like  Mr.  Ticknor.  He  is  an  admirable 
person,  very  like  his  cousin  in  mind  and  manners,  unmistakably 
good.  It  is  delightful  to  hear  him  talk  of  you,  and  to  feel  that  tin- 
sort  of  elder  brotherhood  which  a  senior  partner  must  exercise  in  a 
firm  is  in  such  hands.  He  was  very  kind  to  little  Harry,  and  Harry 
likes  him  next  to  you.     You  know  he  had  been  stanch  in  resisting 

all  the  advances  of  dear  Mr.  ,  who  had  asked  him  if  he  would 

not  come  to  him.  to  which  he  had  responded  by  a  sturdy  "no!  " 
He  (Mr.  Ticknor)  came  here  on  Saturday  with  the  dear  Bcnnochs 
(N.  B.  I  love  him  better  than  ever),  and  the  Kingsleys  met  him. 
Mr.  Hawthorne  was  to  have  come,  but  could  not  leave  Liverpool  so 
soon,  so  that  is  a  pleasure  to  come.  He  will  tell  you  that  all  is  ar- 
ranged for  printing  with  Colburn's  successors,  Hurst  and  Blackett, 
two  separate  works,  the  plays  and  dramatic  scenes  forming  one, 
the  stories  to  be  headed  by  a  long  tale,  of  which  I  have  always  had 
the  idea  in  my  head,  to  form  almost  a  novel.  God  grant  me  strength 
to  do  myself  and  my  publishers  justice  in  that  story  !  This  whole 
affair  springs  from  the  fancy  which  Mr.  Bennoch  has  taken  to  have  the 
plays  printed  in  a  collected  form  during  my  lifetime,  for  I  had  always 
felt  that  they  would  be  so  printed  after  my  death,  so  that  their  com- 
ing out  now  seems  to  me  a  sort  of  anachronism.  The  one  certain 
pleasure  that  I  shall  derive  from  this  arrangement  will  be,  having  my 
name  and  yours  joined  together  in  the  American  edition,  for  we  re- 
serve the  early  sheets.    Nothing  ever  vexed  me  so  much  as  the  other 

book  not  being  in  your  hands.     That  was  Mr. 's  fault,  for,  stiff 

as  Bentley  is,  Mr.  Bennoch  would  have  managed  him Of  a 

certainty  my  first  strong  interest  in  American  poetry  sprang  from 
dear  Dr.  Holmes's  exquisite  little  piece  of  scenery  painting,  which  he 
delivered  where  his  father  had  been  educated.  You  sent  me  that, 
and  thus  made  the  friendship  between  Dr.  Holmes  and  me  ;  and 
now  you  are  yourself  —  you,  my  dearest  American  friend  —  deliv- 
ering an  address  at  the  greatest  American  University.  It  is  a  great 
honor,  and  one  .... 

I  suppose  Mr.  Ticknor  tells  you  the  book-news?  The  most  strik- 
ing work  for  years  is  "  Haydon's  Life.''  I  hope  you  have  reprinted 
it  for  it   is  sure,  not  only  of  a  run,  but  of  a  durable  success.     You 


336  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

know  that  the  family  wanted  me  to  edit  the  book.  I  shrank  from 
a  task  that  required  so  much  knowledge  which  could  only  be  pos- 
sessed by  one  living  in  the  artist  world  now,  to  know  who  was 
dead  and  who  alive,  and  Mr.  Tom  Taylor  has  done  it  admirably.  I 
read  the  book  twice  over,  so  profound  was  my  interest  in  it.  In  his 
early  days,  I  used  to  be  a  sort  of  safety-valve  to  that  ardent  spirit, 
most  like  Benvenuto  Cellini  both  in  pen  and  tongue  and  person. 
Our  dear  Mr.  Bennoch  was  the  providence  of  his  later  years.  They 
fell  me  that  that  powerful  work  has  entirely  stopped  the  sale  of 
Moore"s  Life,  which,  all  tinsel  and  tawdry  rags,  might  have  been 
written  by  a  court  newsman  or  a  court  milliner.  I  wonder  whether 
they  will  print  the  other  six  volumes;  for  the  four  out  they  have 
given  Mrs.  Moore  three  thousand  pounds.     A  bad  account  Mr.  Tup- 

per  gives  of .      Fancy  his  conceit!      When  Mr.  Tupper  praised 

a  passage  in  one  of  his  poems,  he  said,  "  If  I  had  known  you  liked 
it,  I  would  have  omitted  that  passage  in  my  new  edition,"  and  he 
has  done  so  by  passages  praised  by  persons  of  taste,  cut  them  out 
bodily  and  left  the  sentences  before  and  after  to  join  themselves  how 

they  could.     What  a  bad  figure  your  President  and  Mr.  cat 

at  the  opening  of  your  Exhibition !  I  am  sorry  for ,  for,  al- 
though he  has  quite  forgotten  me  since  his  aunt's  book  came  out, 
he  once  stayed  three  weeks  with  us,  and  I  liked  him.  Well,  so  many 
of  his  countrymen  are  over-good  to  me,  that  I  may  well  forgive  one 
solitary  instance  of  forgetfulness !  Make  my  love  to  all  my  dear 
friends  at  Boston  and  Cambridge.  Tell  Mrs.  Sparks  how  dearly  I 
should  have  liked  to  have  been  at  her  side  on  the  Thursday.  Tell 
Dr.  Holmes  that  his  kind  approbation  of  Rienzi  is  one  of  my  en- 
couragements in  this  new  edition.  I  had  a  long  talk  about  him  with 
Mr.  Ticknor,  and  rejoice  to  find  him  so  young.  Thank  Mr.  Whipple 
again  and  again  for  his  kindness. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

(No  date.) 

My  very  dear  Friend  :  Mr.  Hillard  (whom  I  shall  be  delighted 
to  see  if  he  come  to  England  and  will  let  me  know  when  he  can  get 
here)  —  Mr.  Hillard  has  just  put  into  verse  my  own  feelings  about 
you.  It  is  the  one  comfort  belonging  to  the  hard  work  of  these 
two  books  (for  besides  the  Dramatic  Works  in  two  thick  volumes, 
there  are  prose  stories  in  two  also,  and  I  have  one  long  tale,  almost  a 
novel,  to  write),  —  it  is  the  one  comfort  of  this  labor  that  /  shall  see 
our  names  together  on  one  page.  I  have  just  finished  a  long  gos- 
siping    preface    of   thirty  or   forty  pages  to  the  Dramatic  Works, 


MISS  MITFORD.  337 

'*■_.  ■-  ■■  ■■■■■..  .      ..      ..  „ 

which  is  much  more  an  autobiography  than  the  Recollections,  and 
which  I  have  tried  to  make  as  amusing  as  if  it  were  ill-natured. 
That  work  is  dedicated  to  our  dear  Mr.  Bennoch,  another  consola- 
tion. I  sent  the  dedication  to  dear  Mr.  Ticknor,  but  as  his  letter  of 
adieu  did  not  reach  me  till  two  or  three  days  after  it  was  written, 
and  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I  recollected  the  number  in  Pater- 
noster Row,  I  shall  send  it  to  you  here.  "  To  Francis  Bennoch,  Esq., 
who  blends  in  his  life  great  public  services  with  the  most  genial 
private  hospitality;  who,  munificent  patron  of  poet  and  of  painter, 
is  the  first  to  recognize  every  talent  except  his  own,  content  to  be 
beloved  where  others  claim  to  be  admired ;  to  him,  equally  valued 
as  companion  and  as  friend,  these  volumes  are  most  respectfully  and 
affectionately  inscribed  by  the  author."  I  write  from  memory,  but 
if  this  be  not  it,  it  is  very  like  it,  (and  I  beg  you  to  believe  that 
my  preface  is  a  little  better  English  than  this  agglomeration  of 
"  its.") 

Mr.  Kiirjslry  says  that  Alfred  Tennyson  says  that  Alexander 
Smith's  poems  show  fancy,  but  not  imagination  ;  and  on  my  repeat- 
ing this  to  Mrs.  Browning,  she  said  it  was  exactly  her  impression. 
For  my  part  I  am  struck  by  the  extravagance  and  the  total  want 
of  finish  and  of  constructive  power,  and  I  am  in  hopes  that  ulti- 
mately goodwill  come  out  of  evil,  for  Mr.  Kingsley  has  written,  he 
tells  me,  a  paper  called  "Alexander  Pope  and  Alexander  Smith," 
and  Mr.  Willmott,  the  powerful  critic  of  The  Times,  takes  the  same 
view,  lie  tells  me,  and  will  doubtless  put  it  into  print  some  day 
or  other,  so  that  the  carrying  this  bad  school  to  excess  will  work 

for  good.     By  the  way,  Mr.  ,  whose  Imogen  is  so  beautiful, 

sent  me  the  other  day  a  terrible  wild  affair  in  that  style,  and  I 
wrote  him  a  frank  letter,  which  my  sincere  admiration  for  what  he 
does  well  gives  me  some  right  to  do.  He  has  in  him  the  making  of 
a  great  poet;  but,  if  he  once  take  to  these  obscurities,  he  is  lost.  I 
hope  I  have  not  offended  him,  for  I  tliink  it  is  a  real  talent,  and  I  feel 
the  strongest  interest  in  him.  My  young  friend,  James  Payn,  went 
a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  ago  to  Lasswade  and  spent  an  evening 
with  Mr.  De  Quincey.  He  speaks  of  him  just  as  you  do,  marvel- 
lously fine  in  point  of  conversation,  looking  like  an  old  beggar,  but 
with  the  manners  of  a  prince,  "  if,"  adds  James  Payn,  "  we  may 
understand  by  that  all  that  is  intelligent  and  courteous  and  charm- 
ing." (I  suppose  he  means  such  manners  as  our  Emperor's.)  He 
began  by  saying  that  his  life  was  a  mere  misery  to  him  from  nerves, 
and  that  he  could  only  render  it  endurable  by  a  semi-inebriation 
with  opium.  (I  always  thought  he  had  not  left  opium  off.)  .... 
15  v 


338  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

On  his  return,  James  Payn  again  visited  Harriet  Martineau,  who 
talked  frankly  about  the  book,  exculpating  Mr.  Atkinson  and  taking 
all  the  blame  to  herself.  She  asked  if  I  had  read  it,  and  on  finding 
that  I  had  not,  said,  "  It  was  better  so."  There  are  fine  points 
about  Harriet  Martineau.  Mrs.  Browning  is  positively  crazy 
about  the  spirit-rappings.  She  believes  every  story,  European  or 
American,  and  says  our  Emperor  consults  the  mediums,  which  I 
disbelieve. 

The  above  was  written  yesterday.  To-day  has  brought  me  a 
charming  letter  from  Miss  De  Quincey.  She  has  been  very  ill,  but 
is  now  back  at  Lasswade,  and  longing  most  earnestly  to  persuade 
her  father  to  return  to  G-rasmere.  Will  she  succeed  ?  She  sends 
me  a  charming  message  from  a  brother  Francis,  a  young  physician 
settled  in  India.  She  says  that  her  sister  told  her  her  father  was  in 
bad  spirits  when  talking  to  Mr.  Payn,  which  perhaps  accounts  for 
his  confessing  to  the  continuing  the  opium-eating. 

Mr. brought  me  some  proofs  of  his  new  volume  of  poems. 

I  think  that  if  he  will  take  pains  he  will  be  a  real  poet.  But  it  is 
so  difficult  to  get  young  men  to  believe  that  correcting  and  re-cor- 
recting is  necessary,  and  he  is  a  most  charming  person,  and  so  gets 
spoiled.  I  spoil  him  myself,  God  forgive  me!  although  I  advise  him 
to  the  best  of  my  power.  No  signs  of  Mr.  Hawthorne  yet! 
Heaven  bless  you,  my  dear  friend. 

Ever  faithfully  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

October,  1853. 

My  very  dear  Friend  :  I  cannot  thank  you  enough  for  the  two 
charming  books  which  you  have  sent  me.  I  enclose  a  letter  for  the 
author  of  this  very  remarkable  book  of  Italian  travel,  and  I  have 
written  to  dear  Mr.  Hawthorne  myself. 

Since  I  wrote  to  you,  dear  Mr.  Bennoch  sent  to  me  to  look  out 
what  letters  I  could  find  of  poor  Haydon's.  I  was  half  killed  by 
the  operation,  all  my  sins  came  upon  me ;  for,  lulling  my  conscience 
by  carelessness  about  bills  and  receipts,  and  by  answering  almost 
every  letter  the  day  it  comes,  I  am  in  other  respects  utterly  careless, 
and  my  great  mass  of  correspondence  goes  where  fate  and  K de- 
cree. We  had  five  great  chests  and  boxes,  two  huge  hampers,  fifteen 
or  sixteen  baskets,  and  more  drawers  than  you  would  believe  the 
house  could  hold,  to  look  over,  and  at  last  disinterred  sixty-five.  I  did 
not  dare  read  them  for  fear  of  the  dust,  but  I  have  no  doubt  they 
will  be  most  valuable,  for  his  letters  were  matchless  for  talent  and 
spirit.     I  hope  you  have  reprinted  the  Life  ;  if  so,  of  course  you  will 


MISS  MITFORD.  339 

publish  the  Correspondence.  By  the  way,  it  is  a  curious  speci- 
men of  the  little  care  our  highest  people  have  for  poetry  of  the 
school,  that  Vice-Chancellor  Wood,  one  of  the  most  accom- 
plished men  whom  I  have  ever  known,  a  bosom  friend  of  Ma- 
caulay,  was  with  me  last  week,  and  had  never  heard  of  Alexander 
Smith. 

I  continue  terribly  lame,  and  with  no  chance  of  amendment  till 
the  spring,  when  you  will  come  and  do  me  good.  Besides  the  lame- 
ness, I  am  also  miserably  feeble,  ten  years  older  than  when  you  saw 
me  last.  I  am  working  as  well  as  I  can,  but  very  slowly.  I  send 
you  a  proof  of  the  Preface  to  the  Dramatic  Works  (not  knowing 
whether  they  have  sent  you  the  sheets,  or  when  they  mean  to  bring 
it  out).  The  few  who  have  seen  this  Introduction  like  it.  It  tells 
the  truth  about  myself  and  says  no  ill  of  other  people.  God  bless 
you,  dear  friend.  Say  everything  forme  to  all  friends,  not  forgetting 
Mr.  Ticknor. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Swallowfield,  November  8, 1853. 

My  very  dear  Friend  ;  Your  letters  are  always  delightful  to  me, 
even  when  they  are  dated  Boston  ;  think  what  they  will  be  when 
they  are  dated  London.  In  my  last  I  sent  you  a  very  rough  proof 
of  my  Preface  (I  think  Mr.  Hurst  means  to  call  it  Introduction), 
which  you  will  find  autobiographical  to  your  heart's  content ;  I  hope 
you  will  like  it.  To-day  I  enclose  the  first  rough  draft  of  an  ac- 
count of  my  first  impression  of  Haydon.  Don't  print  it,  please,  be- 
cause I  suppose  they  mean  it  for  a  part  of  the  Correspondence  when 
it  shall  be  published.  I  looked  out  for  those  sixty-five  long  letters 
of  Haydon's,  —  as  long,  perhaps,  each,  as  half  a  dozen  of  mine  to 
you,  —  and  doubtless  I  have  many  more,  but  I  was  almost  blinded 
by  the  dust  in  hunting  up  those,  my  eyes  having  been  very  tender 
since  I  was  shut  up  in  a  smoky  room  for  twenty-two  weeks  last 
winter.  I  find  now  that  Messrs.  Longman  have  postponed  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Correspondence  in  the  fear  that  it  would  injure  the 
sale  of  the  Memoirs,  the  book  having  had  a  great  success  here.  By 
the  enclosed,  which  is  as  true  and  as  like  as  I  could  make  it,  you  will 
see  that  he  was  a  very  brilliant  and  charming  person.  I  believe  that 
next  to  having  been  heart-broken  by  the  committee  and  the  heart- 
lessness  of  his  pupil ,  and  enraged  by  the  passion  for  that  miser- 
able little  wretch,  Tom  Thumb,  that  the  real  cause  of  his  suicide 
was  to  get  his  family  provided  for.  It  succeeded.  By  one  way  and 
another  they  had  £  440  a  year  between  the  four ;  but  although  the 


34©  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

poor  father  never  complained,  you  will  see  by  his  book  what  a 
selfish  wretch  that was 

My  tragedies  are  printed,  and  the  dramatic  scenes,  forming,  with 
the  preface,  two  volumes  of  above  four  hundred  pages  each.  But 
I  don't  think  they  are  to  come  out  till  the  prose  work,  and  that  is 
not  a  quarter  finished.  I  am  always  a  most  slow  and  laborious 
writer  (that  Preface  was  written  three  times  over  throughout,  and 
many  parts  of  it  five  or  six),  and  of  course  my  ill  health  does  not 
improve  my  powers  of  composition.  This  wet  summer  and  autumn 
have  been  terribly  against  me.  I  am  lamer  even  than  when  Mr. 
Ticknor  saw  me,  and  sometimes  cannot  even  dip  the  pen  in  the 
ink  without  holding  it  in  my  left  hand.  Thank  God  my  head  is 
spared,  and  my  heart  is,  I  think,  as  young  as  ever. 

I  had  a  letter  to-day  from  Mr.  Chorley  ;  he  has  been  staying  all 
the  autumn  with  Sir  William  Molesworth,  now  a  Cabinet  Minister, 
but  he  complains  terribly  about  his  own  health,  notwithstanding  he 
has  a  play  coming  out  at  the  Olympic,  which  Mr.  Wigan  has  taken. 
Mrs.  Kingsley,  a  most  sweet  person,  has  a  cough  which  has  forced 
them  to  send  her  to  the  sea.  You  shall  be  sure  to  see  both  him  and 
Mr.  Willmott  if  I  can  compass  it;  but  we  live,  each  of  us,  seven 
miles  apart,  and  these  country  clergymen  are  so  tied  to  their  parish 
that  they  are  difficult  to  catch.  However,  they  both  come  to  see 
me  whenever  they  can,  and  we  must  contrive  it.  You  will  like  both 
in  different  ways.  Mr.  Willmott  is  one  of  the  most  agreeable  men 
in  the  world,  and  Mr.  Kingsley  is  charming.  I  have  another  dear 
friend,  not  an  author,  whom  I  prefer  to  either,  —  Hugh  Pearson. 
He  made  for  himself  a  collection  of  De  Quincey,  when  a  lad  at 
Oxford.  You  would  like  him.  I  think,  better  than  anybody  ;  but  he 
too  is  a  country  clergyman,  living  eight  miles  off.  Poor  Mr.  Norton  ! 
His  letters  were  charming.  He  is  connected  in  my  mind  with  Mrs. 
Hemans,  too,  to  whom  he  was  so  kind.  You  must  say  everything 
for  me  to  dear  Airs.  Sparks.  I  seem  most  ungrateful  to  her,  but  I 
really  have  little  power  of  writing  letters  just  now.      Did  I  tell 

you  that  Mr. sent  me  a  poem  called ,  which  I  am  very 

sorry  that  he  ever  wrote.  It  has  shocked  Mr.  Bennoch  even 
more  than  it  did  me.     You  must  get  him  to  write  more  poems 

like  .     A  young  friend  of  mine  has  brought  out  a  little  volume 

in  which  there  is  striking  evidence  of  talent ;  but  none  of  these 
young  writers  take  pains.  How  very  pretty  is  that  scrap  on  a 
country  church !  Mrs.  Browning  is  at  Florence,  but  is  going  to 
Rome.  She  says  that  your  countryman,  Mr.  Story,  has  made  a 
charming  statuette,  I  think  of  Beethoven,  or  else  of  Mendelssohn, 


MISS  MIT  FORD.  341 

which  ought  to  make  his  reputation.  She  is  crazy  about  mediums. 
She  says  (but  I  have  not  heard  it  elsewhere)  that  Thackeray  and 
Dickens  are  to  winter  at  Rome,  and  Alfred  Tennyson  at  Florence. 
Mrs.  Trollope  has  quite  recovered,  and  receives  as  usual.  How  full 
of  beauty  Mr.  Hillard's  book  is !  thank  him  for  it  again  and  again. 
Did  I  tell  you  that  they  are  going  to  engrave  a  portrait  of  me  by 
Haydon,  now  belonging  to  Mr.  Bennoch,  for  the  Dramatic  Works  ? 
God  bless  you,  my  very  dear  friend.  Say  everything  for  me  to  Mr. 
Ticknor  and  Dr.  Holmes  and  Dr.  Parsons,  and  all  my  friends  in 
Boston.  Little  Henry  grows  a  very  sensible,  intelligent  boy,  and  is 
a  great  favorite  at  his  school.     He  is  getting  on  with  French. 

Once  more,  ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

1854. 

(January,  1854.) 

My  beloved  Friend:  They  who  correspond  with  sick  people 
must  be  content  to  receive  such  letters  as  are  sent  from  hospitals. 
For  many  weeks  I  have  been  wholly  shut  up  in  my  own  room,  get- 
ting with  exceeding  difficulty  from  the  bed  to  the  fireside,  quite 
unable  to  stir  either  in  the  chair  or  in  the  bed,  but  much  less  miser- 
able up  than  when  in  bed.  The  terrible  cold  of  last  summer  did 
not  allow  me  to  gain  any  strength,  so  that  although  the  fire  in  my 
room  is  kept  up  night  and  day,  yet  a  severe  attack  of  influenza 
came  on  and  would  have  carried  me  off,  had  not  Mr.  May  been  so 
much  alarmed  at  the  state  of  the  pulse  and  the  general  feebleness 
as  to  order  me  two  tablespoonfuls  of  champagne  in  water  once  a 
day,  and  a  teaspoonful  of  brandy  also  in  water,  at  night,  which 
undoubtedly  saved  my  life.  It  is  the  only  good  argument  for  what 
is  called  teetotalism  that  it  keeps  more  admirable  medicines  as  med- 
icine; for  undoubtedly  a  wine-drinker,  however  moderate,  would 
not  have  been  brought  round  by  the  remedy  which  did  me  so  much 
good.  Miserably  feeble  I  still  am,  and  shall  continue  till  May  or 
June  (if  it  please  Grod  to  spare  my  life  till  then),  when,  if  it  be  fine 
weather,  Sam  will  lift  me  down  stairs  and  into  the  pony-chaise,  and 
I  may  get  stronger.  Well,  in  the  midst  of  the  terrible  cough,  which 
did  not  allow  me  to  lie  down  in  bed,  and  a  weakness  difficult  to 
describe,  I  finished  "  Atherton."  I  did  it  against  orders  and  against 
warning,  because  I  had  an  impression  that  T  should  not  live  to  com- 
plete it.  and  I  sent  it  yesterday  to  London  to  dear  Mr.  Bennoch,  so 
I  suppose  you  will  soon  receive  the  sheets.  Almost  every  line  has 
been  written  three  times  over,  and  it  is  certainly  the  most  cheerful 
and  sunshiny  story  that  was  ever  composed  in  such  a  state  of  help- 


342  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


lessness,  feebleness,  and  suffering ;  for  the  rheumatic  pain  in  the 
chest  not  only  rendered  the  cough  terrible  (that,  thank  G-od,  is 
nearly  gone  now),  but  makes  the  position  of  writing  one  of 
misery.  Grod  grant  you  may  like  this  story  !  I  shall  at  least  say 
in  the  Preface  that  it  will  give  me  one  pleasure,  that  of  having  in 
the  American  title-page  the  names  of  dear  friends  united  with 
mine.  Mind  I  don't  know  whether  the  story  be  good  or  bad.  I 
only  answer  for  its  having  the  youthfulness  which  you  liked  in  the 
preface  to  the  plays.  Well,  dearest  friend,  just  when  I  was  at  the 
worst  came  your  letter  about  the  ducks  and  the  ducks  themselves. 
Never  were  birds  so  welcome.  My  friend,  Mr.  May,  the  cleverest 
and  most  admirable  person  whom  I  know  in  this  neighborhood, 
refuses  all  fees  of  any  sort,  and  comes  twelve  miles  to  see  me,  when 
torn  to  pieces  by  all  the  great  folk  round,  from  pure  friendship. 
Think  how  glad  I  was  to  have  such  a  dainty  to  offer  him  just  when 
he  had  all  his  family  gathered  about  him  at  Christmas.  I  thank 
you  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  for  giving  me  this  great  pleasure, 
infinitely  greater  than  eating  it  myself  would  have  been.  They 
were  delicious.     How  very,  very  good  you  are  to  me ! 

Has  Mrs.  Craig  written  to  you  to  tell  you  of  her  marriage  ?  I 
will  run  the  risk  of  repetition  and  tell  you  that  it  is  the  charming 
Margaret  De  Quincey,  who  has  married  the  son  of  a  Scotch  neigh- 
bor. He  has  purchased  land  in  Ireland,  and  they  are  about  to  live  in 
Tipperary,  —  a  district  which  Irish  people  tell  me  is  losing  its  repu- 
tation for  being  the  most  disturbed  in  Ireland,  but  keeping  that  for 
superior  fertility.  They  are  trying  to  regain  a  reputation, for  litera- 
ture in  Edinburgh.  John  Ruskin  has  been  giving  a  series  of  lectures 
on  art  there,  and  Mr.  Kingsley  four  lectures  on  the  schools  of  Alex- 
andria. 

Nothing  out  of  Parliament  has  for  very  long  made  so  strong  a 
sensation  as  our  dear  Mr.  Bennoch's  evidence  on  the  London  Cor- 
poration. Three  leading  articles  in  The  Times  paid  him  the  highest 
compliments,  and  you  know  what  that  implies.  I  have  myself 
had  several  letters  congratulating  me  on  having  such  a  friend. 
Ah !  the  public  qualities  make  but  a  part  of  that  fine  and  genial 
character,  although  I  firmly  believe  that  the  strength  is  essen- 
tial to  the  tenderness.  I  always  put  you  and  him  together,  and  it 
is  one  of  the  compensations  of  my  old  age  to  have  acquired  such 
friends. 

Have  you  seen  Matthew  Arnold's  poems?  They  have  fine  bits. 
The  author  is  a  son  of  Dr.  Arnold. 

God  bless  you  1     Say  everything  for  me  to  my  dear  American 


MISS  MITFORD.  343 

friends,  Drs.  Holmes  and   Parsons,  Mr.  Longfellow,  Mr.   Whittier, 
Mrs.  Sparks,  Mr.  Taylor,  Mr.  Whipple,  Mr.  and  Mrs.   Willard,  and 
Mr.  Ticknor.     Many,  very  many  happy  years  to  them  and  to  you. 
Always  most  affectionately  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

P.  S.  I  enclose  some  slips  to  be  pasted  into  books  for  my  differ- 
ent American  friends.  If  I  have  sent  too  many,  you  will  know 
which  to  omit.  I  must  add  to  the  American  preface  a  line  expres- 
sive of  my  pleasure  in  joining  my  name  to  yours.  I  will  send  one 
Jine  here  for  fear  of  its  not  going.  Mr.  May  says  that  those  ducks 
were  amongst  the  few  things  thoroughly  deserving  their  reputation, 
holding  the  same  place,  as  compared  with  our  wild  ducks,  that  the 
finest  venison  does  to  common  mutton.  I  cannot  tell  you  how 
much  I  thank  you  for  enabling  me  to  send  such  a  treat  to  such  a 
friend.  You  will  send  a  copy  of  the  prose  book  or  the  dramas, 
according  to  your  own  pleasure,  only  I  should  like  the  two  dear 
doctors  to  have  the  plays. 

Swallowfield,  January  23,  1854. 

I  have  always  to  thank  you  for  some  kindness,  dearest  Mr. 
Fields,  generally  for  many.  How  clever  those  magazines  are, 
especially  Mr.  Lowell's  article,  and  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor's  graceful 
stanzas  !  Just  now  I  have  to  ask  you  to  forward  the  enclosed  to 
Mr.  Whittier.  He  sent  me  a  charming  poem  on  Burns,  full  of  ten- 
derness and  humanity,  and  the  indulgence  which  the  wise  and  good 
can  so  well  afford,  and  which  only  the  wisest  and  best  can  show  to 
their  erring  brethren.  I  rejoice  to  hear  that  he  is  getting  well 
again.  I  myself  am  weaker  and  more  helpless  every  day,  and  the 
rheumatic  pain  in  the  chest  increases  so  rapidly,  and  makes  writing 
so  difficult,  even  the  writing  such  a  note  as  this,  that  I  cannot  be 
thankful  enough  for  having  finished  "  Atherton,"  for  I  am  sure  I  could 
not  write  it  now.  There  is  some  chance  of  my  getting  better  in 
the  summer,  if  I  can  be  got  into  the  air,  and  that  must  be  by  being 
let  down  in  a  chair  through  a  trap-door,  like  so  much  railway  lug- 
gage, for  there  is  not  the  slightest  power  of  helping  myself  left  in 
me,  —  nothing,  indeed,  but  the  good  spirits  which  Shakespeare  gave 
to  Horatio,  and  Hamlet  envied  him.  Dearest  Mr.  Bennoch  has 
made  me  a  superb  present,  —  two  portraits  of  our  Emperor  and  his 
fair  wife.  He  all  intellect,  —  never  was  a  brow  so  full  of  thought ; 
ehe  all  sweetness,  —  such  a  mouth  was  never  seen,  it  seems  waiting 
to  smile.     The  beauty  is  rather  of  expression  than  of  feature,  which 

is  exactly  what  it  ought  to  be 

M.  R.  M. 


344  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 


Swallowfield,  May  2,  1854. 

My  dkar  Friend  :  Long  before  this  time,  you  will,  I  hope,  have 
received  the  sheets  of  "Atherton."  It  has  met  with  an  enthusiastic 
reception  from  the  English  press,  and  certainly  the  friends  Avho 
have  written  to  me  on  the  subject  seem  to  prefer  the  tale  which 
fills  the  first  volume  to  anything  that  I  have  done.  I  hope  you 
will  like  it,  — I  am  sure  you  will  not  detect  in  it  the  gloom  of  a  sick- 
chamber.  Mr.  May  holds  out  hopes  that  the  summer  may  do  me 
good.  As  yet  the  spring  has  been  most  unfavorable  to  invalids, 
being  one  combined  series  of  east-wind,  so  that  instead  of  getting 
better  I  am  every  day  weaker  than  the  last,  unable  to  see  more 
than  one  person  a  day,  and  quite  exhausted  by  half  an  hour's  con- 
versation. I  hope  to  be  a  little  better  before  your  arrival,  dearest 
friend,  because  I  must  see  you ;  but  any  stranger  —  even  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne —  is  quite  out  of  the  question. 

You  may  imagine  how  kind  dear  Mr.  Bennoch  has  been  all 
through  this  long  trial,  next  after  John  Ruskin  and  his  admirable 
father  the  kindest  of  all  my  friends,  and  that  is  saying  much. 

Grod  bless  you.     Love  to  all  my  friends,  poets,  prosers,  and  the 

dear ,  who  are  that  most  excellent  thing,  readers.      I  wonder  if 

you  ever  received  a  list  of  people  to  whom  to  send  one  or  other  of 
my  works?  I  wrote  such  with  little  words  in  my  own  hand,  but 
writing  is  so  painful  and  difficult,  and  I  am  always  so  uncertain  of 
your  getting  my  letters,  that  I  cannot  attempt  to  send  another. 
There  was  one  for  Mrs.  Sparks.  I  am  sure  of  liking  Dr.  Parsons's 
book,  —  quite  sure.  Once  again,  God  bless  you!  Little  Henry 
grows  a  nice  boy. 

Ever  most  affectionately  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Swallowfield,  July  12,  1854. 

Dearest  Mr.  Fields:  Our  excellent  friend  Mr.  Bennoeh  will 
have  told  you  from  how  painful  a  state  of  anxiety  your  most  wel- 
come letter  relieved  us.  You  have  done  quite  right,  my  beloved 
friend,  in  returning  to  Boston.  The  voyage,  always  so  trying  to 
you,  would,  with  your  health  so  deranged,  have  been  most  danger- 
ous, and  next  year  you  will  find  all  your  friends,  except  one,  as 
happy  to  see  and  to  welcome  you.  Even  if  you  had  arrived  now 
our  meeting  would  have  been  limited  to  minutes.  Dr.  Parsons  will 
tell  you  that  fresh  feebleness  in  a  person  so  long  tried  and  so  aged 
(sixty-seven)  must  have  a  speedy  termination.  May  Heaven  pro- 
long your  valuable  life,  dear  friend,  and  grant  that  you  may  be  as 
happy  yourself  as  you  have  always  tried  to  render  others! 


MISS   M1TF0RD.  345 


I  rejoice  to  hear  what  you  tell  me  of  "  Atherton."  Here  the 
reception  has  been  most  warm  and  cordial.  Every  page  of  it  was 
written  three  times  over,  so  that  I  spared  no  pains,  but  I  was 
nearly  killed  by  the  terrible  haste  in  which  it  was  finished,  and  I  do 
believe  that  many  of  the  sheets  were  sent  to  me  without  ever  being 
read  in  the  office.  I  have  corrected  one  copy  for  the  third  English 
edition,  but  I  cannot  undertake  such  an  effort  again,  so,  if  (as  I  ven- 
ture to  believe)  it  be  destined  to  be  often  reprinted  by  you,  you 
must  correct  it  from  that  edition.  I  hope  you  sent  a  copy  to  Mr. 
Whittier  from  me.  I  had  hoped  you  would  bring  one  to  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne and  Mr.  De  Quincey,  but  I  must  try  what  I  can  do  with  Mr. 
Hurst,  and  must  depend  on  you  for  assuring  these  valued  friends 
that  it  was  not  neglect  or  ingratitude  on  my  part. 

Mr.  Boner,  my  dear  and  valued  friend,  wishes  you  and  dear  Mr. 
Ticknor  to  print  his  "  Chamois-Hunting  "  from  a  second  edition  which 
Chapman  and  Hall  are  bringing  out.  I  sent  my  copy  of  the  work 
to  Mr.  Bennoch  when  we  were  expecting  you,  that  you  might  see 
it.  It  is  a  really  excellent  book,  full  of  interest,  with  admirable 
plates,  which  you  could  have,  and,  speaking  in  your  interest,  as 
much  as  in  his,  I  firmly  believe  that  it  would  answer  to  you  in 
money  as  well  as  in  credit  to  bring  it  out  in  America.  Also  Mrs. 
Browning  (while  in  Italy)  wrote  to  me  to  inquire  if  you  would 
like  to  bring  out  a  new  poem  by  her,  and  a  new  work  by  her  hus- 
band. I  told  her  that  I  could  not  doubt  it,  but  that  she  had  better 
write  duplicate  letters  to  London  and  to  Boston.  Our  poor  little 
boy  is  here  for  his  holidays.  His  excellent  mother  and  step-father 
have  nursed  me  rather  as  if  they  had  been  my  children  than  my 
servants.  Everybody  has  been  most  kind.  The  champagne,  which 
I  believe  keeps  me  alive,  is  dear  Mr.  Bennoch's  present;  but  you 
will  understand  how  ill  I  am  when  I  tell  you  that  my  breath  is  so 
much  affected  by  the  slightest  exertion  that  I  cannot  bear  even  to 
be  lifted  into  bed,  but  have  spent  the  last  eight  nights  sitting  up, 
with  my  feet  supported  on  a  leg-rest.  This  from  exhaustion,  not 
from  disease  of  the  lungs. 

Give  the  enclosed  to  Dr.  Parsons.  You  know  what  I  have 
always  thought  of  his  genius.  In  my  mind  no  poems  ever  crossed 
the  Atlantic  which  approached  his  stanzas  on  Dante  and  on  the 
death  of  Webster,  and  yet  you  have  great  poets  too.  Think  how 
glad  and  proud  I  am  to  hear  of  the  honor  he  has  done  me.  I  wish 
you  had  transcribed  the  verses. 

God  bless  you,  my  beloved  friend  !  Say  everything  for  me  to  all 
my  dear  friends,  to  Dr.  Parsons,  to  Dr.  Holmes,  to  Mr.  Whittier,  to 
15* 


346  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Professor  Longfellow,  to  Mr.  Taylor,  to  Mr.  Stoddard,  to  Mrs. 
Sparks,  and  above  all  to  the  excellent  Mr.  Ticknor  and  the  dear 

W s. 

Ever  yours,  M.  E.  M. 

Swallowfield,  July  23, 1854. 

My  vert  dear  Friend  :    This  is  a  sort  of  postscript  to  my  last, 

written  instantly  on  the  receipt  of  yours  and  sent  through  Mr. . 

I  hope  you  received  it,  for  he  is  so  impetuous  that  I  always  a  little 
doubt  his  care ;  at  least  it  was  when  sent  through  him  that  the  loss 
of  letters  to  and  fro  took  place.  However,  I  enjoined  him  to  be 
careful  this  time,  and  he  assured  me  that  he  was  so. 

The  purport  of  this  is  to  add  the  name  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Willmott, 
to  the  authors  who  wish  for  the  advantage  of  your  firm  as  their 
American  publishers.  I  have  begged  him  to  write  to  you  himself, 
and  I  hope  he  has  done  so,  or  that  he  will  do  so.  But  he  is  staying 
at  Richmond  with  sick  relatives,  and  I  am  not  sure.  You  know 
his  works,  of  course.  They  are  becoming  more  and  more  popular 
in  England,  and  he  is  writing  better  and  better.  The  best  critical 
articles  in  The  Times  are  by  him.  He  is  eminently  a  scholar,  and 
yet  full  of  anecdote  of  the  most  amusing  sort,  with  a  memory  like 
Scott,  and  a  charming  habit  of  applying  his  knowledge.  His  writ- 
ings become  more  and  more  like  his  talk,  and  I  am  confident  that 
you  would  find  his  works  not  only  most  creditable,  but  most  profit- 
able. I  would  not  recommend  you  to  each  other  if  it  were  not  for 
your  mutual  advantage,  so  far  as  my  poor  judgment  goes.  On  the 
25th  my  Dramatic  Works  are  to  be  published  here.  I  hope  they 
have  sent  you  the  sheets. 

I  have  not  heard  yet  from  any  American  friend,  except  your 
delightful  letter  and  one  from  Grace  Greenwood,  but  I  hope  I  shall. 
I  prize  the  good  word  of  such  persons  as  Drs.  Parsons  and  Holmes 
and  Professor  Longfellow  and  John  Whittier  and  many  others.  I 
am  still  very  ill. 

The  Brownings  remain  this  year  in  Italy.  If  it  be  very  hot,  they 
will  go  for  a  month  or  two  to  the  Baths  of  Lucca,  but  their  home 
is  Florence.  She  has  taken  a  fancy  to  an  American  female  sculptor, 
■ — a  girl  of  twenty-two, —  a  pupil  of  Gibson's,  who  goes  with  the 
rest  of  the  fraternity  of  the  studio  to  breakfast  and  dine  at  a  cafe, 
and  yet  keeps  her  character.    Also  she  believof1  in  all  your  rappings. 

God  be  with  you,  my  very  dear  friend.  I  trust  you  are  quite 
recovered. 

Always  affectionately  yours.  M.  R.  M. 


MISS  M1TF0RD.  347 

Swallowfielb,  August  21,  1854. 

My  dear  Mr.  Fields  :  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor  having  sent  me  a  most 
interesting  letter,  but  no  address,  I  trouble  you  with  my  reply. 
Read  it,  and  you  will  perhaps  understand  that  I  am  declining  day  by 
day,  and  that,  humanly  speaking,  the  end  is  very  near.  Perhaps 
there  may  yet  be  time  for  an  answer  to  this 

I  believe  that  one  reason  for  your  not  quite  understanding  my  ill- 
ness is,  that  you,  if  you  have  seen  long  and  great  sickness  at  all,  which 
is  doubtful,  have  seen  it  with  an  utter  prostration  of  the  mind  and  the 
spirits,  —  that  your  women  are  languid  and  querulous,  and  never 
dream  of  bearing  up  against  bodily  evils  by  an  effort  of  the  mind. 
Even  now,  when  half  an  hour's  visit  is  utterly  forbidden,  and  half 
that  time  leaves  me  panting  and  exhausted,  I  never  mention  (except 
forced  into  it  by  your  evident  disbelief)  my  own  illness  either  in 
speaking  or  writing,  —  never,  except  to  answer  Mr.  May's  questions, 
or  to  join  my  beloved  friend,  Mr.  Pearson,  in  thanking  God  for  the 
visitation  which  I  humbly  hope  was  sent  in  his  mercy  to  draw  me 
nearer  to  him ;  may  he  grant  me  grace  to  use  it !  —  for  the  rest, 
whilst  the  intelligence  and  the  sympathy  are  vouchsafed  to  me,  I 
will  write  of  others,  and  give  to  my  friends,  as  far  as  in  me  lies,  the 
thoughts  which  would  hardly  be  more  worthily  bestowed  on  my 
own  miserable  body. 

You  will  be  sorry  to  find  that  the  poor  Talfourds  are  likely  to  be 
very  poor.  A  Reading  attorney  has  run  away,  cheating  half  the 
town.  He  has  carried  off  £4,000  belonging  to  Lady  Talfourd,  and 
she  herself  tells  my  friend,  William  Harness  (one  of  her  kindest 
friends),  that  that  formed  the  principal  part  of  the  Judge's  small 
savings,  and,  together  with  the  sum  for  which  he  had  insured  his  life 
(only  £  5,000),  was  all  which  they  had.  Now  there  are  five  young 
people,  —  his  children,  — the  widow  and  an  adopted  niece,  seven  in 
all,  accustomed  to  every  sort  of  luxury  and  indulgence.  The  only 
glimpse  of  hope  is,  that  the  eldest  son  held  a  few  briefs  on  circuit 
and  went  through  them  creditably;  but  it  takes  many  years  in 
England  to  win  a  barrister's  reputation,  and  the  poorer  our  young 
men  are  the  more  sure  they  are  to  marry.  Add  the  strange  fact 
that  since  the  father's  death  (he  having  reserved  his  copyrights)  not 
a  single  copy  of  any  of  his  books  has  been  sold !  A  fortnight  ago  I 
had  a  great  fright  respecting  Miss  Martineau,  which  still  continues. 
James  Payn,  who  is  living  at  the  Lakes,  and  to  whom  she  has  been 
most  kind,  says  he  fears  she  will  be  a  great  pecuniary  sufferer  by 

.     I  only  hope  that  it  is  &  definite  sum,  and  no  general  security 

or  partnership,  —  even  that  will  be  bad  enough  for  a  woman  of  her 


348  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

age,  and  so  hard  a  worker,  who  intended  to  give  herself  rest ;  but 
observe  these  are  only  fears.  I  know  nothing.  The  Brownings  are 
detained  in  Italy,  she  tells  me,  for  want  of  money,  and  cannot  even 
get  to  Lucca.  This  is  my  bad  news,  —  0,  and  it  is  very  bad  that 
sweet  Mrs.  Kingsley  must  stay  two  years  in  Devonshire  and  cannot 
come  home.  I  expect  to  see  him  this  week.  John  Ruskin  is  with 
his  father  and  mother  in  Switzerland,  constantly  sending  me  tokens 
of  friendship.  Everybody  writes  or  sends  or  comes ;  never  was 
such  kindness.  The  Bennochs  are  in  Scotland.  He  sends  me 
charming  letters,  having,  I  believe,  at  last  discovered  what  every 
one  else  has  known  long.  Remember  me  to  Mr.  Ticknor.  Say 
everything  to  my  Athenian  friends  all,  especially  to  Dr.  Holmes 
and  Dr.  Parsons. 

Ever,  dear  friend,  your  affectionate 

M.  R.  M. 

September  26, 1854. 

My  very  dear  Friend  :  Tour  most  kind  and  interesting  letter  has 
just  arrived,  with  one  from  our  good  friend,  Mr.  Bennoch,  announcing 
the  receipt  of  the  £  50  bill  for  "  Atherton."  More  welcome  even 
as  a  sign  of  the  prosperity  of  the  book  in  a  country  where  I  have 
so  many  friends  and  which  I  have  always  loved  so  well,  than  as 
money,  although  in  that  way  it  is  a  far  greater  comfort  than  you 
probably  guess,  this  very  long  and  very  severe  illness  obliging  me  to 
keep  a  third  maid-servant.  I  get  no  sleep,  — not  on  an  average  an 
hour  a  night,  —  and  require  perpetual  change  of  posture  to  prevent, 
the  skin  giving  way  still  more  than  it  does,  and  forming  what  we 
emphatically  call  bed-sores,  although  I  sit  up  night  and  day,  and 
have  no  other  relief  than  the  being,  to  a  slight  extent,  shifted  from 
one  position  to  another  in  the  chair  that  I  never  quit.  Besides  this, 
there  are  many  other  expenses.  I  tell  you  this,  dear  friend,  that 
Mr.  Ticknor  and  yourself  may  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that, 
besides  all  that  you  have  done  for  many  years  for  my  gratification, 
you  have  been  of  substantial  use  in  this  emergency.  In  spite  of 
all  this  illness,  after  being  so  entirely  given  over  that  dear  Mr. 
Pearson,  leaving  me  a  month  ago  to  travel  with  Arthur  Stanley 
for  a  month,  took  a  final  leave  of  me,  I  have  yet  revived  greatly 
during  these  last  three  weeks.  I  owe  this,  under  Providence,  to 
my  admirable  friend,  Mr.  May,  who,  instead  of  abandoning  the 
stranded  ship,  as  is  common  in  these  cases,  has  continued,  although 
six  miles  off,  and  driving  four  pair  of  horses  a  day,  ay,  and  while 
himself  hopeless  of  my  case,  to  visit  me  constantly  and  to  watch 


MISS  MITFORD.  349 


every  symptom,  and  exhaust  every  resource  of  bis  great  art,  as 
if  his  own  fame  and  fortune  depended  on  the  result.  One  kind 
but  too  sanguine  friend,  Mr.  Bennoch,  is  rather  over-hopeful  about 
this  amendment,  for  I  am  still  in  a  state  in  which  the  slightest 
falling  back  would  carry  me  off,  and  in  which  I  can  hardly  think 
it  possible  to  weather  the  winter.  If  that  incredible  contingency 
should  arise,  what  a  happiness  it  would  be  to  see  you  in  April ! 
But  I  must  content  myself  with  the  charming  little  portrait  you 
have  sent  me,  which  is  your  very  self.  Thank  you  for  it  over 
and  over.  Thank  you,  too,  for  the  batch  of  notices  on  "  Ather 
ton."  .... 

Dr.  Parsons's  address  is  very  fine,  and  makes  me  still  more  desire 
to  see  his  volume;  and  the  letter  from  Dr.  Holmes  is  charming,  so 
clear,  so  kind,  and  so  good.  If  I  had  been  a  boy,  I  would  have  fol- 
lowed their  noble  profession.  Three  such  men  as  Mr.  May,  Dr. 
Parsons,  and  Dr.  Holmes  are  enough  to  confirm  the  predilection  that 
I  have  always  had  for  the  art  of  healing. 

I  have  no  good  news  to  tell  you  of  dear  Mr.  K .     His  sweet 

wife  (Mr.  Ticknor  will  remember  her)  has  been  three  times  at 
death's  door  since  he  saw  her  here,  and  must  spend  at  least  two 
winters  more  at  Torquay.  But  I  don't  believe  that  he  could  stay 
here  even  if  she  were  well.  Bramshill  has  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
a  Puseyite  parson,  who,  besides  that  craze,  which  is  so  flagrant  as  to 

have  made  dear  Mr.  K forbid  him  his  pulpit,  is  subject  to  fits  of 

raving  madness,  —  one  of  those  most  dangerous  lunatics  whom  an  age 
(in  which  there  is  a  great  deal  of  false  humanity)  never  shuts  up  until 
some  terrible  crime  has  been  committed.  (A  celebrated  mad-doctor 
said  the  other  day  of  this  very  man,  that  he  had  <:  homicidal  mad- 
ness.'1)    You  may  fancy  what  such  a  Squire,  opposing  him  in  every 

way,  is  to  the  rector  of  the  parish.     Mr.  K told  me  last  winter 

that  he  was  driving  him  mad,  and  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  he  would 
make  a  large  sacrifice  of  income  to  exchange  his  parish.  To  make  up 
for  this,  he  is  working  himself  to  death,  and  I  greatly  fear  that  his 
excess  of  tobacco  is  almost  equal  to  the  opium  of  Mr.  De  Quincey. 
With  his  temperament  this  is  full  of  danger.  He  was  only  here  for 
two  or  three  days  to  settle  a  new  curate,  but  he  walked  over  to  see 
me,  and  I  will  take  care  that  he  receives  your  message.  His  regard 
for  me  is,  I  really  believe,  sincere  and  very  warm.  Remember  that 
all  this  is  in  strict  confidence.  The  kindness  that  people  show  to 
me  is  something  surprising.  I  have  not  deserved  it,  but  I  receive  it 
most  gratefully.  It  touches  one's  very  heart.  Will  you  say  every- 
thing for  me  to  my  many  kind  friends,  too  many  to  name  ?     I  had  a 


35^  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

kind  letter  from  Mrs.  Sparks  the  other  day.  The  poets  I  cling  tc 
while  I  can  hold  a  pen.     God  bless  you. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

Can  you  contrive  to  send  a  copy  of  your  edition  of  "  Atherton " 
to  Mr.  Hawthorne  ?     Pray,  dear  friend,  do  if  you  can. 

October  12, 1854. 
My  very  dear  Friend  :  I  can  hardly  give  you  a  greater  proof 
of  affection,  than  in  telling  you  that  your  letter  of  yesterday  affected 
me  to  tears,  and  that  I  thanked  God  for  it  last  night  in  my  prayers ; 
so  much  a  mercy  does  it  seem  to  me  to  be  still  beloved  by  one 
whom  I  have  always  loved  so  much.  I  thank  you  a  thousand  times 
for  that  letter  and  for  the  book.  I  enclose  you  my  own  letter  to 
dear  Dr.  Parsons.  Read  it  before  giving  it  to  him.  I  could  not 
help  being  amused  at  his  having  appended  my  name  to  a  poem  in 
some  sort  derogating  from  the  fame  of  the  only  Frenchman  who  ir 
worthy  to  be  named  after  the  present  great  monarch.  I  hope  I 
have  not  done  wrong  in  confessing  my  faith.  Holding  back  an 
opinion  is  often  as  much  a  falsehood  as  the  actual  untruth  itself,  and 
so  I  think  it  would  be  here.  Now  we  have  the  book,  do  you  re- 
member through  whom  you  sent  the  notices?     If  you  do,  let  me 

know.     You  will  see  by  my  letter  to  Dr.  Parsons  that dined 

here  yesterday,  under  K 's  auspices.     He  invited  himself  for  three 

days,  —  luckily  I  have  Mr.  Pearson  to  take  care  of  him,  —  and  still 
more  luckily  I  told  him  frankly  yesterday  that  three  days  would  be 
too  much,  for  I  had  nearly  died  last  night  of  fatigue  and  exhaustion 
and  their  consequences.  To-night  I  shall  leave  all  to  my  charming 
friend.  There  is  nobody  like  John  Ruskin  for  refinement  and  elo- 
quence. You  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  he  has  asked  me  for  a  letter 
to  dear  Mr.  Bennoch  to  help  him  in  his  schools  of  Art,  —  I  mean 
with  advice.  This  will,  I  hope,  bring  our  dear  friend  out  of  the 
set  he  is  in.  and  into  that  where  I  wish  to  see  him,  for  John  Rus- 
kin must  always  fill  the  very  highest  position.  God  bless  you  all, 
dear  friends! 

Ever  most  affectionately  yours,  M-  R.  M. 

Love  to  all  my  friends. 

You  have  given  me  a  new  motive  for  clinging  to  life  by  coming 
to  England  in  April.  Till  this  pull-back  yesterday,  I  was  better, 
although,  still  afraid  of  being  lifted  into  bed,  and  with  small  hope 
of  getting  alive  through  the  winter.     God  bless  you ! 


MISS  MITFORD.  351 


October  18,  1854. 

My  vert  dear  Friend  :  Another  copy  of  dear  Dr.  Parsons's 
oook  has  arrived,  with  a  charming,  most  charming  letter  from  him, 
and  a  copy  of  your  edition  of  "  Atherton."  It  is  very  nicely  got  up 
indeed,  the  portrait  the  best  of  any  engraving  that  has  been  made 
of  me,  at  least,  any  recent  engraving.  May  I  have  a  few  copies  of 
that  engraving  when  you  come  to  England  ?     And  if  I  should  be 

gone,  will  you  let  poor  K have  one  ?     The  only  thing  I  lament 

in  the  American  "  Atherton  "  is  that  a  passage  that  I  wrote  to  add  to 
that  edition  has  been  omitted.  It  was  to  the  purport  of  my  having 
a  peculiar  pleasure  in  the  prospect  of  that  reprint,  because  few 
things  could  be  so  gratifying  to  me  as  to  find  my  poor  name  con- 
joined with  those  of  the  great  and  liberal  publishers,  for  one  of 
whom  I  entertain  so  much  respect  and  esteem,  and  for  the  other  so 
true  and  so  lively  an  affection.  The  little  sentence  was  better 
turned  much,  but  that  was  the  meaning.  No  doubt  it  was  in  one 
of  my  many  missing  letters.  I  even  think  I  sent  it  twice, — I 
should  greatly  have  liked  that  little  paragraph  to  be  there.  May 
I  ask  you  to  give  the  enclosed  to  dear  Dr.  Parsons  ?  There 
are  noble  lines  in  his  book,  which  gains  much  by  being  known. 
Dear  John  Ruskin  was  here  when  it  arrived,  and  much  pleased  with 
it  on  turning  over  the  leaves,  and  he  is  the  most  fastidious  of  men. 
I  must  give  him  the  copy.  His  praise  is  indeed  worth  having.  I 
am  as  when  I  wrote  last.     G-od  bless  you,  beloved  friend. 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 

December  23, 1854. 

Your  dear  affectionate  letter,  dearest  and  kindest  friend,  would 
have  given  me  unmingled  pleasure  had  it  conveyed  a  better  account 
of  your  business  prospects.  Here,  from  what  I  can  gather,  and  from 
the  sure  sign  of  all  works  of  importance  being  postponed,  the  trade 
is  in  a  similar  state  of  depression,  caused,  they  say,  by  this  war, 
which  but  for  the  wretched  imbecility  of  our  ministers  could  never 
have  assumed  so  alarming  an  appearance.  Whether  we  shall  re- 
cover from  it,  God  only  knows.  My  hope  is  in  Louis  Napoleon ; 
but  that  America  will  rally  seems  certain  enough.  She  has  elbow- 
room,  and,  moreover,  she  is  not  unused  to  rapid  transitions  from  high 
prosperity  to  temporary  difficulty,  and  so  back  again.     Moreover, 

dear  friend,  I  have  faith  in  you God  bless  you,  my  dear 

friend !  May  he  send  to  both  of  you  health  and  happiness  and 
length  of  days,  and  so  much  of  this  world's  goods  as  is  needful  to 
prevent  anxiety  and  insure  comfort     I  have   known   many   rich 


352  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

people  in  my  time,  and  the  result  has  convinced  me  that  with  great 
wealth  some  deep  black  shadow  is  as  sure  to  walk,  as  it  is  to  follow 
the  bright  sunshine.  So  I  never  pray  for  more  than  the  blessed 
enough  for  those  whom  I  love  best. 

And  very  dearly  do  I  love  my  American  friends,  —  you  best  of 
all,  —  but  all  very  dearly,  as  I  have  cause.  Say  this,  please,  to  Dr. 
Parsons  and  Dr.  Holmes  (admiring  their  poems  is  a  sort  of  touch- 
stone of  taste  with  me,  and  very,  very  many  stand  the  test  well), 
and  dear  Bayard  Taylor,  a  man  soundest  and  sweetest  the  nearer 
one  gets  to  the  kernel,  and  good,  kind  John  Whittier,  who  has  the 
fervor  of  the  poet  ingrafted  into  the  tough  old  Quaker  stock,  and 
Mr.  Stoddard,  and  Mrs.  Lippincott,  and  Mrs.  Sparks,  and  the  Phila- 
delphia Poetess,  and  dear  Mr.  and  Mrs.  W ,  and  your  capital 

critics  and  orators.  Remember  me  to  all  who  think  of  me ;  but  keep 
the  choicest  tenderness  for  yourself  and  your  wife. 

Do  you  know  those  books  which  pretend  to  have  been  written 
from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred  years  ago,  —  "Mary  Powell" 
(Milton's  Courtship),  "  Cherry  and  Violet,"  and  the  rest  ?  Their  fault 
is  that  they  are  too  much  alike.  The  authoress  (a  Miss  Manning) 
sent  me  some  of  them  last  winter,  with  some  most  interesting  letters. 
Then  for  many  months  I  ceased  to  hear  from  her,  but  a  few  weeks 
ago  she  sent  me  her  new  Christmas  book,  —  "  The  Old  Chelsea  Bun 
House,"  —  and  told  me  she  was  dying  of  a  frightful  internal  com- 
plaint. She  suffers  martyrdom,  but  bears  it  like  a  saint,  and  her  let- 
ters are  better  than  all  the  sermons  in  the  world.  May  God  grant 
me  the  same  cheerful  submission  !  I  try  for  it  and  pray  that  it  be 
granted,  but  I  have  none  of  the  enthusiastic  glow  of  devotion,  so 
real  and  so  beautiful  in  Miss  Manning.  My  faith  is  humble  and 
lowly,  —  not  that  I  have  the  slightest  doubt,  —  but  I  cannot  get  her 
rapturous  assurance  of  acceptance.   My  friend,  William  Harness,  got 

me  to  employ  our  kind  little  friend,  Mr. ,  to  procure  for  him 

Judge  Edmonds's  "  Spiritualism."  What  an  odious  book  it  is  !  there 
is  neither  respect  for  the  dead  nor  the  living.  Mrs.  Browning  be- 
lieves it  all ;  so  does  Bulwer,  who  is  surrounded  by  mediums  who 
summon  his  dead  daughter.  It  is  too  frightful  to  talk  about.  Mr. 
May  and  Mr.  Pearson  both  asked  me  to  send  it  away,  for  fear  of  its 
seizing  upon  my  nerves.  I  get  weaker  and  weaker,  and  am  become 
a  mere  skeleton.  Ah,  dear  friend,  come  when  you  may,  you  will 
find  only  a  grave  at  Swallowfield.  Once  again,  God  bless  you  and 
yours ! 

Ever  yours,  M.  R.  M. 


"BARRY     CORNWALL" 

AND  SOME   OF  HIS  FRIENDS. 


"All,  all  are  gone,  the  old  familiar  faces.'''' 

CHARLES    LAMB. 

"  Old  Acquaintance,  shall  the  nights 
You  and  I  once  talked  together, 
Be  forgot  like  common  things  .<"' 


"  His  thoughts  half  hid  in  golden  dreams, 
Which  make  thrice  fair  the  songs  and  streams 
Of  Air  and  Earth.'" 


"  Song  should  breathe  of  scents  and  flowers  ; 
Song  should  like  a  river  flow  ; 
Song  shanld  firing  hark  scenes  and  hours 
That  wr  l-K-ed,  —if:,  long  ago  !  " 

BARRV    CORNWALL. 


fX^ 


VII. 

"BARRY     CORNWALL" 

AND  SOME  OF  HIS  FRIENDS. 

THERE  is  no  portrait  in  my  possession  more  satisfac- 
tory than  the  small  one  of  Barry  Cornwall,  made 
purposely  for  me  in  England,  from  life.  It  is  a  thor- 
oughly honest  resemblance. 

I  first  saw  the  poet  five-and-twenty  years  ago,  in  his 
own  house  in  London,  at  No.  13  Upper  Harley  Street, 
Cavendish  Square.  He  was  then  declining  into  the  vale 
of  years,  but  his  mind  was  still  vigorous  and  young. 
My  letter  of  introduction  to  him  was  written  by  Charles 
Sumner,  and  it  proved  sufficient  for  the  beginning  of  a 
friendship  which  existed  through  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
My  last  interview  with  him  occurred  in  1869.  I  found 
him  then  quite  feeble,  but  full  of  his  old  kindness  and 
geniality.  His  speech  was  somewhat  difficult  to  follow, 
for  he  had  been  slightly  paralyzed  not  long  before ;  but 
after  listening  to  him  for  half  an  hour,  it  was  easy  to 
understand  nearly  every  word  he  uttered.  He  spoke  with 
warm  feeling  of  Longfellow,  who  had  been  in  London 
during  that  season,  and  had  called  to  see  his  venerable 
friend  before  proceeding  to  the  Continent.  "  Was  n't  it 
good  of  him,"  said  the  old  man,  in  his  tremulous  voice, 
"  to  think  of  me  before  he  had  been  in  town  twenty- four 
hours  ? "  He  also  spoke  of  his  dear  companion,  John 
Kenyon,  at  whose  house  we  had  often  met  in  years  past, 
and  he  called  to  mind   a   breakfast  party  there,  saying 


356  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

with  deep  feeling,  "  And  you  and  I  are  the  only  ones  now 
alive  of  all  who  came  together  that  happy  morning ! " 

A  few  months  ago,*  at  the  great  age  of  eighty-seven, 
Bryan  Waller  Procter,  familiarly  and  honorably  known  in 
English  literature  for  sixty  years  past  as  "  Barry  Corn- 
wall," calmly  "fell  on  sleep."  The  schoolmate  of  Lord 
Byron  and  Sir  Kobert  Peel  at  Harrow,  the  friend  and 
companion  of  Keats,  Lamb,  Shelley,  Coleridge,  Landor, 
Hunt,  Talfourd,  and  Rogers,  the  man  to  whom  Thackeray 
"  affectionately  dedicated  "  his  "  Vanity  Pair,"  one  of  the 
kindest  souls  that  ever  gladdened  earth,  has  now  joined 
the  great  majority  of  England's  hallowed  sons  of  song. 
No  poet  ever  left  behind  him  more  fragrant  memories, 
and  he  will  always  be  thought  of  as  one  whom  his  con- 
temporaries loved  and  honored.  No  harsh  word  will  ever 
be  spoken  by  those  who  have  known  him  of  the  author  of 
"  Marcian  Colonna,"  "  Mirandola,"  "  The  Broken  Heart," 
and  those  charming  lyrics  which  rank  the  poet  among  the 
first  of  his  class.  His  songs  will  be  sung  so  long  as 
music  wedded  to  beautiful  poetry  is  a  requisition  any- 
where. His  verses  have  gone  into  the  Book  of  Fame, 
and  such  pieces  as  "  Touch  us  gently,  Time,"  "  Send  down 
thy  winged  Angel,  God,"  "  King  Death,"  "  The  Sea,"  and 
"  Belshazzar  is  King,"  will  long  keep  his  memory  green. 
Who  that  ever  came  habitually  into  his  presence  can  for- 
get the  tones  of  his  voice,  the  tenderness  in  his  gray 
retrospective  eyes,  or  the  touch  of  his  sympathetic  hand 
laid  on  the  shoulder  of  a  friend !  The  elements  were 
indeed  so  kindly  mixed  in  him  that  no  bitterness  or 
rancor  or  jealousy  had  part  or  lot  in  his  composition. 
No  distinguished  person  was  ever  more  ready  to  help  for- 
ward the  rising  and  as  yet  nameless  literary  man  or 
woman  who  asked  his  counsel  and  warm-hearted  suffrage. 

*  October,  1874. 


"BARKY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     357 

His  mere  presence  was  sunshine  to  a  new-comer  into  the 
world  of  letters  and  criticism,  for  he  was  always  quick 
to  encourage,  and  slow  to  disparage  anybody.  Indeed,  to 
be  human  only  entitled  any  one  who  came  near  him  to 
receive  the  gracious  bounty  of  his  goodness  and  courtesy. 
He  made  it  the  happiness  of  his  life  never  to  miss,  when- 
ever opportunity  occurred,  the  chance  of  conferring  pleas- 
ure and  gladness  on  those  who  needed  kind  words  and 
substantial  aid. 

His  equals  in  literature  venerated  and  loved  him. 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  never  ceased  to  regard  him  with 
the  deepest  feeling,  and  such  men  as  Browning  and  Ten- 
nyson and  Carlyle  and  Forster  rallied  about  him  to  the 
last.  He  was  the  delight  of  all  those  interesting  men 
and  women  who  habitually  gathered  around  Eogers's 
famous  table  in  the  olden  time,  for  his  manner  had  in  it 
all  the  courtesy  of  genius,  without  any  of  that  chance 
asperity  so  common  in  some  literary  circles.  The  shyness 
of  a  scholar  brooded  continually  over  him  and  made  him 
reticent,  but  he  was  never  silent  from  ill-humor.  His 
was  that  true  modesty  so  excellent  in  ability,  and  so  rare 
in  celebrities  petted  for  a  long  time  in  society.  His  was 
also  that  happy  alchemy  of  mind  which  transmutes  disa- 
greeable things  into  golden  and  ruby  colors  like  the  dawn. 
His  temperament  was  the  exact  reverse  of  Fuseli's,  who 
complained  that  "  nature  put  him  out."  A  beautiful 
spirit  has  indeed  passed  away,  and  the  name  of  "  Barry 
Cornwall,"  beloved  in  both  hemispheres,  is  now  sanctified 
afresh  by  the  seal  of  eternity  so  recently  stamped  upon  it. 

It  was  indeed  a  privilege  for  a  young  American,  on  his 
first  travels  abroad,  to  have  "  Barry  Cornwall "  for  his 
host  in  London.  As  I  recall  the  memorable  days  and 
nights  of  that  long-ago  period,  I  wonder  at  the  good  for- 
tune which  brought  me  into  such  relations  with  him,  and 


358  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

I  linger  with  profound  gratitude  over  his  many  acts  of 
unmerited  kindness.  One  of  the  most  intimate  rambles 
I  ever  took  with  him  was  in  1851,  when  we  started  one 
morning  from  a  book-shop  in  Piccadilly,  where  we  met 
accidentally.  I  had  been  in  London  only  a  couple  of 
days,  and  had  not  yet  called  upon  him  for  lack  of  time. 
Several  years  had  elapsed  since  we  had  met,  but  he  began 
to  talk  as  if  we  had  parted  only  a  few  hours  before.  At 
first  I  thought  his  mind  was  impaired  by  age,  and  that 
he  had  forgotten  how  long  it  was  since  we  had  spoken 
together.  I  imagined  it  possible  that  he  mistook  me  for 
some  one  else  ;  but  very  soon  I  found  that  his  memory 
was  not  at  fault,  for  in  a  few  minutes  he  began  to  ques- 
tion me  about  old  friends  in  America,  and  to  ask  for  in- 
formation concerning  the  probable  sea-sick  horrors  of  an 
Atlantic  voyage.  "  I  suppose,"  said  he,  "  knowing  your 
infirmity,  you  found  it  hard  work  to  stand  on  your  imma- 
terial legs,  as  Hood  used  to  call  Lamb's  quivering  limbs." 
Sauntering  out  into  the  street,  he  went  on  in  a  quaintly 
humorous  way  to  imagine  what  a  rough  voyage  must  be 
to  a  real  sufferer,  and  thus  walking  gayly  along,  we  came 
into  Leadenhall  Street.  There  he  pointed  out  the  office 
where  his  old  friend  and  fellow-magazinist,  "  Elia,"  spent 
so  many  years  of  hard  work  from  ten  until  four  o'clock  of 
every  day.  Being  in  a  mood  for  reminiscence,  he  de- 
scribed the  Wednesday  evenings  he  used  to  spend  with 
"  Charles  and  Mary "  and  their  friends  around  the  old 
"  mahogany-tree  "  in  Eussell  Street.  I  remember  he  tried 
to  give  me  an  idea  of  how  Lamb  looked  and  dressed,  and 
how  he  stood  bending  forward  to  welcome  his  guests  as 
they  arrived  in  his  humble  lodgings.  Procter  thought 
nothing  unimportant  that  might  serve  in  any  way  to 
illustrate  character,  and  so  he  seemed  to  wish  that  I 
might  get  an  exact  idea  of  the  charming  person  both  of 
us  prized  so  ardently  and  he  had  known  so  intimately. 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"   AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     359 

Speaking  of  Lamb's  habits,  he  said  he  had  never  known 
his  friend  to  drink  immoderately  except  upon  one  occa- 
sion, and  he  observed  that  "Elia,"  like  Dickens,  was  a 
small  and  delicate  eater.  With  faltering  voice  he  told 
me  of  Lamb's  "givings  away"  to  needy,  impoverished 
friends  whose  necessities  were  yet  greater  than  his  own. 
His  secret  charities  were  constant  and  unfailing,  and  no 
one  ever  suffered  hunger  when  he  was  by.  He  could  not 
endure  to  see  a  fellow-creature  in  want  if  he  had  the 
means  to  feed  him.  Thinking,  from  a  depression  of 
spirits  which  Procter  in  his  young  manhood  was  once 
laboring  under,  that  perhaps  he  was  in  want  of  money, 
Lamb  looked  him  earnestly  in  the  face  as  they  were 
walking  one  day  in  the  country  together,  and  blurted  out, 
in  his  stammering  way, "  My  dear  boy,  I  have  a  hundred- 
pound  note  in  my  desk  that  I  really  don't  know  what  to 
do  with :  oblige  me  by  taking  it  and  getting  the  con- 
founded thing  out  of  my  keeping."  "  I  was  in  no  need 
of  money,"  said  Procter,  "  and  I  declined  the  gift ;  but  it 
was  hard  work  to  make  Lamb  believe  that  I  was  not  in 
an  impecunious  condition." 

Speaking  of  Lamb's  sister  Mary,  Procter  quoted  Haz- 
litt's  saying  that  "  Mary  Lamb  was  the  most  rational  and 
wisest  woman  he  had  ever  been  acquainted  with."  As 
we  went  along  some  of  the  more  retired  streets  in  the  old 
city,  we  had  also,  I  remember,  much  gossip  about  Cole- 
ridge and  his  manner  of  reciting  his  poetry,  especially 
when  "  Elia  "  happened  to  be  among  the  listeners,  for  the 
philosopher  put  a  high  estimate  upon  Lamb's  critical 
judgment.  The  author  of  "The  Ancient  Mariner  "  always 
had  an  excuse  for  any  bad  habit  to  which  he  was  him- 
self addicted,  and  he  told  Procter  one  day  that  perhaps 
snuff  was  the  final  cause  of  the  human  nose.  In  con- 
nection with  Coleridge  we  had  much  reminiscence  of  such 
interesting  persons  as  the  Novellos,  Martin  Burney,  Tal- 


360  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

fourd,  and  Crabb  Eobinson,  and  a  store  of  anecdotes  in 
which  Haydon,  Manning,  Dyer,  and  Godwin  figured  at 
full  length.  In  course  of  conversation  I  asked  my  com- 
panion if  he  thought  Lamb  had  ever  been  really  in  love, 
and  he  told  me  interesting  things  of  Hester  Savory,  a 
young  Quaker  girl  of  Pentonville,  who  inspired  the  poem 
embalming  the  name  of  Hester  forever,  and  of  Fanny 
Kelly,  the  actress  with  "  the  divine  plain  face,"  who  will 
always  live  in  one  of  "  Elia's "  most  exquisite  essays. 
"  He  had  a  reverence  for  the  sex,"  said  Procter,  "  and  there 
were  tender  spots  in  his  heart  that  time  could  never  en- 
tirely cover  up  or  conceal." 

During  our  walk  we  stepped  into  Christ's  Hospital, 
and  turned  to  the  page  on  its  record  book  where  together 
we  read  this  entry  :  "  October  9, 1782,  Charles  Lamb,  aged 
seven  years,  son  of  John  Lamb,  scrivener,  and  Elizabeth 
his  wife." 

It  was  a  lucky  morning  when  I  dropped  in  to  bid 
"  good  morrow "  to  the  poet  as  I  was  passing  his  house 
one  day,  for  it  was  then  he  took  from  among  his  treasures 
and  gave  to  me  an  autograph  letter  addressed  to  himself 
by  Charles  Lamb  in  1829.  I  found  the  dear  old  man 
alone  and  in  his  library,  sitting  at  his  books,  with  the 
windows  wide  open,  letting  in  the  spring  odors.  Quot- 
ing, as  I  entered,  some  lines  from  Wordsworth  embalming 
May  mornings,  he  began  to  talk  of  the  older  poets  who 
had  worshipped  nature  with  the  ardor  of  lovers,  and  his 
eyes  lighted  up  with  pleasure  when  I  happened  to  remem- 
ber some  almost  forgotten  stanza  from  England's  "  Heli- 
con."  It  was  an  easy  transition  from  the  old  bards  to 
"Elia,"  and  he  soon  went  on  in  his  fine  enthusiastic  way 
to  relate  several  anecdotes  of  his  eccentric  friend.  As  I 
rose  to  take  leave  he  said,  — 

"  Have  I  ever  given  you  one  <^f  Lamb's  \etters  <*)  carry 
home  to  America  ? " 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     361 

"  No,"  I  replied,  "  and  you  must  not  part  with  the  least 
scrap  of  a  note  in  '  Elia's '  handwriting.  Such  things  are 
too  precious  to  be  risked  on  a  sea-voyage  to  another  hem- 
isphere." 

"America  ought  to  share  with  England  in  these  things," 
he  rejoined  ;  and  leading  me  up  to  a  sort  of  cabinet  in  the 
library,  he  unlocked  a  drawer  and  got  out  a  package  of 
time-stained  papers.  "  Ah,"  said  he,  as  he  turned  over 
the  golden  leaves,  "  here  is  something  you  will  like  to 
handle."  I  unfolded  the  sheet,  and  lo !  it  was  in  Keats's 
handwriting,  the  sonnet  on  first  looking  into  Chapman's 
Homer.  "  Keats  gave  it  to  me,"  said  Procter,  "  many, 
many  years  ago,"  and  then  he  proceeded  to  read,  in  tones 
tremulous  with  delight,  these  undying  lines :  — 

"  Much  have  I  travelled  in  the  realms  of  gold, 
And  many  goodly  states  and  kingdoms  seen  ; 
Round  many  Western  islands  have  I  been 
Which  bards  in  fealty  to  Apollo  hold. 
Oft  of  one  wide  expanse  had  I  been  told 
That  deep-browed  Homer  ruled  as  his  demesne  ; 
Yet  did  I  never  breathe  its  pure  serene 
Till  I  heard  Chapman  speak  out  loud  and  bold  : 
Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken, 
Or  like  stout  Cortez  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific  —  and  all  his  men 
Looked  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise  — 
Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darien." 

I  sat  gazing  at  the  man  who  had  looked  on  Keats  in 
the  flush  of  his  young  genius,  and  wondered  at  my  good 
fortune.  As  the  living  poet  folded  up  again  the  faded 
manuscript  of  the  illustrious  dead  one,  and  laid  it  rever- 
ently in  its  place,  I  felt  grateful  for  the  honor  thus  vouch- 
safed to  a  wandering  stranger  in  a  foreign  land,  and  wished 
that  other  and  worthier  votaries  of  English  letters  might 
have  been  present  to  share  with  me  the  boon  of  such  an 
interview.  Presently  my  hospitable  friend,  still  rum- 
is 


362  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

niaging  among  the  past,  drew  out  a  letter,  which  was  the 
one,  he  said,  he  had  heen  looking  after.     "  Cram  it  into 

your  pocket,"  he  cried,  "  for  I  hear  coming  down 

stairs,  and  perhaps  she  won't  let  you  carry  it  off!"  The 
letter  is  addressed  to  B.  W.  Procter,  Esq.,  10  Lincoln's 
Inn,  New  Square.  I  give  the  entire  epistle  here  just  as 
it  stands  in  the  original  which  Procter  handed  me  that 
memorable  May  morning.  He  told  me  that  the  law  ques- 
tion raised  in  this  epistle  was  a  sheer  fabrication  of 
Lamb's,  gotten  up  by  him  to  puzzle  his  young  corre- 
spondent, the  conveyancer.  The  coolness  referred  to  be- 
tween himself  and  Eobinson  and  Talfourd,  Procter  said, 
was  also  a  fiction  invented  by  Lamb  to  carry  out  his  legal 
mystification. 

"Jan'y  19,  1829. 
"  My  dear  Procter,  —  I  am  ashamed  to  have  not  taken  the  drift 
of  your  pleasant  letter,  which  I  find  to  have  been  pure  invention. 
But  jokes  are  not  suspected  in  Boeotian  Enfield.  We  are  plain  peo- 
ple, and  our  talk  is  of  corn,  and  cattle,  and  Waltham  markets.  Be- 
sides I  was  a  little  out  of  sorts  when  I  received  it.  The  fact  is,  I 
am  involved  in  a  case  which  has  fretted  me  to  death,  and  I  have  no 
reliance  except  on  you  to  extricate  me.  I  am  sure  you  will  give  me 
your  best  legal  advice,  having  no  professional  friend  besides  but 
Robinson  and  Talfourd,  with  neither  of  whom  at  present  I  am  on 
the  best  terms.  My  brother's  widow  left  a  will,  made  during  the 
lifetime  of  my  brother,  in  which  I  am  named  sole  Executor,  by 
which  she  bequeaths  forty  acres  of  arable  property,  which  it  seems 
she  held  under  Covert  Baron,  unknown  to  my  Brother,  to  the  heirs 
of  the  body  of  Elizabeth  Dowden,  her  married  daughter  by  her  first 
husband,  in  fee  simple,  recoverable  by  fine  —  invested  property, 
mind,  for  there  is  the  difficulty  —  subject  to  leet  and  quit  rent  —  in 
short,  worded  in  the  most  guarded  terms,  to  shut  out  the  property 
from  Isaac  Dowden  the  husband.  Intelligence  has  just  come  of  the 
death  of  this  person  in  India,  where  he  made  a  will,  entailing  this 
property  (which  seem'd  entangled  enough  already)  to  the  heirs  of 
his  body,  that  should  not  be  born  of  his  wife  ;  for  it  seems  by  the 
Law  in  India  natural  children  can  recover.  They  have  put  the 
cause  into  Exchequer  Process  here,  removed  by  Certiorari  from  the 
Native  Courts,  and  the  question  is  whether  I  should  as  Executor,  try 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AtJD  HIS  FRIENDS.     363 

the  cause  here,  or  again  re-remove  to  the  Supreme  Sessions  at  Banga- 
lore, which  I  understand  I  can,  or  plead  a  hearing  before  the  Privy- 
Council  here.  As  it  involves  all  the  little  property  of  Elizabeth  Dow- 
den,  I  am  anxious  to  take  the  fittest  steps,  and  what  may  be  the  least 
expensive.  For  God's  sake  assist  me,  for  the  case  is  so  embarrassed 
that  it  deprives  me  of  sleep  and  appetite.  M.  Burney  thinks  there 
is  a  Case  like  it  in  Chapt.  170  Sect.  5  in  Fearn's  Contingent  Remain- 
ders. Pray  read  it  over  with  him  dispassionately,  and  let  me  have 
the  result.  The  complexity  lies  in  the  questionable  power  of  the 
husband  to  alienate  in  usum  enfeoffments  whereof  he  was  only  col- 
laterally seized,  etc." 

[On  the  leaf  at  this  place  there  are  some  words  in 
another  hand.  —  F.] 

"  The  above  is  some  of  M.  Burney's  memoranda,  which  he  has 
left  here,  and  you  may  cut  out  and  give  him.  I  had  another  favour 
to  beg,  which  is  the  beggarliest  of  beggings.  A  few  lines  of  verse 
for  a  young  friend's  Album  (six  will  be  enough).  M.  Burney  will 
tell  you  who  she  is  I  want  'em  for.     A  girl  of  gold.     Six  lines  — 

make  'em  eight  —  signed  Barry  C .     They  need  not  be  very 

good,  as  I  chiefly  want  'em  as  a  foil  to  mine.  But  I  shall  be  seri- 
ously obliged  by  any  refuse  scrap.  We  are  in  the  last  ages  of  the 
world,  when  St.  Paul  prophesied  that  women  should  be  '  head- 
strong, lovers  of  their  own  wills,  having  Albums.'  I  fled  hither  to 
escape  the  Albumean  persecution,  and  had  not  been  in  my  new  house 
24  hours,  when  the  Daughter  of  the  next  house  came  in  with  a 
friend's  Album  to  beg  a  contribution,  and  the  following  day  inti- 
mated she  had  one  of  her  own.  Two  more  have  sprung  up  since. 
If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and  fly  unto  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  earth,  there  will  Albums  be.  New  Holland  has  Albums. 
But  the  age  is  to  be  complied  with.  M.  B.  will  tell  you  the  sort  of 
girl  I  request  the  ten  lines  for.  Somewhat  of  a  pensive  cast  what 
you  admire.  The  lines  may  come  before  the  Law  question,  as  that 
cannot  be  determined  before  Hilary  Term,  and  I  wish  your  deliber- 
ate judgment  on  that.  The  other  may  be  flimsy  and  superficial. 
And  if  you  have  not  burnt  your  returned  letter  pray  re-send  it  me 
as  a  monumental  token  of  my  stupidity.  'T  was  a  little  unthink- 
ing of  you  to  touch  upon  a  sore  subject.  Why,  by  dabbling  in  those 
accursed  Annuals  I  have  become  a  by-word  of  infamy  all  over  the 
kingdom.  I  have  sicken'd  decent  women  for  asking  me  to  write  in 
Albums.     There  be  '  dark  jests '  abroad,  Master  Cornwall,  and  some 


364  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

riddles  may  live  to  be  clear'd  up.  And  't  is  n't  every  saddle  is  put 
on  the  right  steed.  And  forgeries  and  false  Gospels  are  not  pecul- 
iar to  the  age  following  the  Apostles.  And  some  tubs  don't  stand 
on  their  right  bottom.  Which  is  all  I  wish  to  say  in  these  ticklish 
Times  —  and  so  your  servant, 

"  Chs.  Lamb." 

At  the  age  of  seventy-seven  Procter  was  invited  to 
print  his  recollections  of  Charles  Lamb,  and  his  volume 
was  welcomed  in  both  hemispheres  as  a  pleasant  addition 
to  "  Eliana."  During  the  last  eighteen  years  of  Lamb's 
life  Procter  knew  him  most  intimately,  and  his  chronicles 
of  visits  to  the  little  gamboge-colored  house  in  Enfield 
are  charming  pencillings  of  memory.  When  Lamb  and 
his  sister,  tired  of  housekeeping,  went  into  lodging  and 

boarding  with  T W ,  their  sometime  next-door 

neighbor,  —  who,  Lamb  said,  had  one  joke  and  forty 
pounds  a  year,  upon  which  he  retired  in  a  green  old  age, 
—  Procter  still  kept  up  his  friendly  visits  to  his  old  asso- 
ciate. And  after  the  brother  and  sister  moved  to  their 
last  earthly  retreat  in  Edmonton,  where  Charles  died  in 
1834,  Procter  still  paid  them  regular  visits  of  love  and 
kindness.  And  after  Charles's  death,  when  Mary  went 
to  live  at  a  house  in  St.  John's  Wood,  her  unfailing  friend 
kept  up  his  cheering  calls  there  till  she  set  out  "  for  that 
unknown  and  silent  shore,"  on  the  20th  of  May,  in  1847. 

Procter's  conversation  was  full  of  endless  delight  to  his 
friends.  His  "  asides  "  were  sometimes  full  of  exquisite 
touches.  I  remember  one  evening  when  Carlyle  was  pres- 
ent and  rattling  on  against  American  institutions,  half 
comic  and  half  serious,  Procter,  who  sat  near  me,  kept  up 
a  constant  underbreath  of  commentary,  taking  exactly  the 
other  side.  Carlyle  was  full  of  horse-play  over  the  char- 
acter of  George  Washington,  whom  he  never  vouchsafed 
to  call  anything  but  George.  He  said  our  first  President 
was  a. good  surveyor,  and  knew  how  to  measure  timber, 
and  that  was  about  all.     Procter  kept  whispering  to  me 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"   AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     365 

all  the  while  Carlyle  was  discoursing,  and  going  over 
Washington's  fine  traits  to  the  disparagement  of  every- 
thing Carlyle  was  laying  down  as  gospel.  I  was  listen- 
ing to  both  these  distinguished  men  at  the  same  time,  and 
it  was  one  of  the  most  curious  experiences  in  conversation 
I  ever  happened  to  enjoy. 

I  was  once  present  when  a  loud-voiced  person  of  qual- 
ity, ignorant  and  supercilious,  was  inveighing  against  the 
want  of  taste  commonly  exhibited  by  artists  when  they 
chose  their  wives,  saying  they  almost  always  selected  infe- 
rior women.  Procter,  sitting  next  to  me,  put  his  hand  on 
my  shoulder,  and,  with  a  look  expressive  of  ludicrous  pity 
and  contempt  for  the  idiotic  speaker,  whispered,  "And  yet 
Vandyck  married  the  daughter  of  Earl  Gower,  poor  fel- 
low ! "  The  mock  solemnity  of  Procter's  manner  was 
irresistible.  It  had  a  wink  in  it  that  really  embodied  the 
genius  of  fun  and  sarcasm. 

Talking  of  the  ocean  with  him  one  day,  he  revealed 
this  curious  fact :  although  he  is  the  author  of  one  of  the 
most  stirring  and  popular  sea-songs  in  the  language,  — 

"  The  sea,  the  sea,  the  open  sea  !  "  — 

he  said  he  had  rarely  been  upon  the  tossing  element,  hav- 
ing a  great  fear  of  being  made  ill  by  it.  I  think  he  told 
me  he  had  never  dared  to  cross  the  Channel  even,  and  so 
had  never  seen  Paris.  He  said,  like  many  others,  he  de- 
lighted to  gaze  upon  the  waters  from  a  safe  place  on  land, 
but  had  a  horror  of  living  on  it  even  for  a  few  hours.  I 
recalled  to  his  recollection  his  own  lines, — 

"  I  'm  on  the  sea  !  I'mon  the  sea  ! 
I  am  where  I  would  ever  be," — 

and  he  shook  his  head,  and  laughingly  declared  I  must 
have  misquoted  his  words,  or  that  Dibdin  had  written  the 
piece  and  put  "  Barry  Cornwall's "  signature  to  it.  We 
had,  I  remember,  a  great  deal  of  fun  over  the  poetical  lies, 


366  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

as  he  called  them,  which  bards  in  all  ages  had  perpetrated 
in  their  verse,  and  he  told  me  some  stories  of  English 
poets,  over  which  we  made  merry  as  we  sat  together  in 
pleasant  Cavendish  Square  that  summer  evening. 

His  world-renowned  song  of  "The  Sea"  he  afterward 
gave  me  in  his  own  handwriting,  and  it  is  still  among  my 
autographic  treasures. 

It  was  Procter  who  first  in  my  hearing,  twenty-five 
years  ago,  put  such  an  estimate  on  the  poetry  of  Eobert 
Browning  that  I  could  not  delay  any  longer  to  make  ac- 
quaintance with  his  writings.  I  remember  to  have  been 
startled  at  hearing  the  man  who  in  his  day  had  known  so 
many  poets  declare  that  Browning  was  the  peer  of  any 
one  who  had  written  in  this  century,  and  that,  on  the 
whole,  his  genius  had  not  been  excelled  in  his  (Procter's) 
time.  '  "  Mind  what  I  say,"  insisted  Procter  ;  "  Browning 
will  make  an  enduring  name,  and  add  another  supremely 
great  poet  to  England." 

Procter  could  sometimes  be  prompted  into  describing 
that  brilliant  set  of  men  and  women  who  were  in  the  habit 
of  congregating  at  Lady  Blessington's,  and  I  well  recollect 
his  description  of  young  N.  P.  Willis  as  he  first  appeared 
in  her  salon.  "  The  young  traveller  came  among  us,"  said 
Procter,  "  enthusiastic,  handsome,  and  good-natured,  and 
took  his  place  beside  D'Orsay,  Bulwer,  Disraeli,  and  the 
other  dandies  as  naturally  as  if  he  had  been  for  years  a 
London  man  about  town.  He  was  full  of  fresh  talk  con- 
cerning his  own  country,  and  we  all  admired  his  clever- 
ness in  compassing  so  aptly  all  the  little  newnesses  of 
the  situation.  He  was  ready  on  all  occasions,  a  little  too 
ready,  some  of  the  habitues  of  the  salon  thought,  and  they 
could  not  understand  his  cool  and  quiet-at-home  manners. 
He  became  a  favorite  at  first  trial,  and  laid  himself  out 
determined  to  please  and  be  pleased.  His  ever  kind  and 
thoughtful  attention  to  others  won  him  troops  of  friends, 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"   AND   HIS  FRIENDS.     367 

and  I  never  can  forget  his  unwearied  goodness  to  a  sick 
child  of  mine,  with  whom,  night  after  night,  he  would  sit 
by  the  bedside  and  watch,  thus  relieving  the  worn-out 
family  in  a  way  that  was  very  tender  and  self-sacrificing." 
Of  Lady  Blessington's  tact,  kindness,  and  remarkable 
beauty  Procter  always  spoke  with  ardor,  and  abated  noth- 
ing from  the  popular  idea  of  that  fascinating  person.  He 
thought  she  had  done  more  in  her  time  to  institute  good 
feeling  and  social  intercourse  among  men  of  letters  than 
any  other  lady  in  England,  and  he  gave  her  eminent 
credit  for  bringing  forward  the  rising  talent  of  the  metrop- 
olis without  waiting  to  be  prompted  by  a  public  verdict. 
As  the  poet  described  her  to  me  as  she  moved  through 
her  exquisite  apartments,  surrounded  by  all  the  luxuries 
that  naturally  connect  themselves  with  one  of  her  com- 
manding position  in  literature  and  art,  her  radiant  and 
exceptional  beauty  of  person,  her  frank  and  cordial  man- 
ners, the  wit,  -wisdom,  and  grace  of  her  speech,  I  thought 
of  the  fair  Giovanna  of  Naples  as  painted  in  "  Bianca 
Visconti " :  — 

"  Gods  !  what  a  light  enveloped  her  ! 
Her  beauty 
"Was  of  that  order  that  the  universe 

Seemed  governed  by  her  motion 

The  pomp,  the  music,  the  bright  sun  in  heaven, 
Seemed  glorious  by  her  leave." 

One  of  the  most  agreeable  men  in  London  literary 
society  during  Procter's  time  was  the  companionable  and 
ever  kind-hearted  John  Kenyon.  He  was  a  man  com- 
pacted of  all  the  best  qualities  of  an  incomparable  good- 
nature. His  friends  used  to  call  him  "  the  apostle  of 
cheerfulness."  He  could  not  endure  a  long  face  under 
his  roof,  and  declined  to  see  the  dark  side  of  anything. 
He  wrote  verses  almost  like  a  poet,  but  no  one  surpassed 
him  in  genuine  admiration  for  whatever  was  excellent  in 
others.      No  happiness  was  so  great  to  him  as  the  confer- 


368  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

ring  of  happiness  on  others,  and  I  am  glad  to  write  my- 
self his  eternal  debtor  for  much  of  my  enjoyment  in 
England,  for  he  introduced  me  to  many  lifelong  friend- 
ships, and  he  inaugurated  for  me  much  of  that  felicity 
which  springs  from  intercourse  with  men  and  women 
whose  books  are  the  solace  of  our  lifelong  existence. 

Kenyon  was  Mrs.  Browning's  cousin,  and  in  1856  she 
dedicates  "Aurora  Leigh"  to  him  in  these  affectionate 
terms :  — 

"  The  words  '  cousin '  and  '  friend '  are  constantly  recurring  in  this 
poem,  the  last  pages  of  which  have  heen  finished  under  the  hospi- 
tality of  your  roof,  my  own  dearest  cousin  and  friend  ;  —  cousin  and 
friend,  in  a  sense  of  less  equality  and  greater  disinterestedness  than 

Romney's I  venture  to  leave  in  your  hands  this  hook,  the 

most  mature  of  my  works,  and  the  one  into  which  my  highest  con- 
victions upon  Life  and  Art  have  entered ;  that  as,  through  my  vari- 
ous efforts  in  literature  and  steps  in  life,  you  have  believed  in  me, 
borne  with  me,  and  been  generous  to  me,  far  beyond  the  common 
uses  of  mere  relationship  or  sympathy  of  mind,  so  you  may  kindly 
accept,  in  sight  of  the  public,  this  poor  sign  of  esteem,  gratitude, 
and  affection  from  your  unforgetting 

"  E.  B.  B." 

How  often  have  I  seen  Kenyon  and  Procter  chirping 
together  over  an  old  quarto  that  had  floated  down  from 
an  early  century,  or  rejoicing  together  over  a  well-worn 
letter  in  a  family  portfolio  of  treasures  !  They  were  a 
pair  of  veteran  brothers,  and  there  was  never  a  flaw  in 
their  long  and  loving  intercourse.  In  a  letter  which 
Procter  wrote  to  me  in  March,  1857,  he  thus  refers  to  his 
old  friend,  then  lately  dead  :  "  Everybody  seems  to  be 
dying  hereabouts,  —  one  of  my  colleagues,  one  of  my  re- 
lations, one  of  my  servants,  three  of  them  in  one  week, 
the  last  one  in  my  own  house.  And  now  I  seem  fit  for 
little  else  myself.  My  dear  old  friend  Kenyon  is  dead. 
There  never  was  a  man,  take  him  for  all  in  all,  with  more 
amiable,  attractive  qualities.    A  kind  friend,  a  good  master, 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     369 

a  generous  and  judicious  dispenser  of  his  wealth,  honor- 
able, sweet-tempered,  and  serene,  and  geuial  as  a  sum- 
mer's day.  It  is  true  that  he  has  left  me  a  solid  mark  of 
his  friendship.  I  did  not  expect  anything ;  but  if  to  like 
a  man  sincerely  deserved  such  a  mark  of  his  regard,  I 
deserved  it.  I  doubt  if  he  has  left  one  person  who  really 
liked  him  more  than  I  did.      Yes,  one  —  I  think  one  —  a 

woman I  get  old  and  weak  and  stupid.      That 

pleasant  journey  to  Niagara,  that  dip  into  your  Indian 
summer,  all  such  thoughts  are  over.  I  shall  never  see 
Italy;  I  shall  never  see  Paris.  My  future  is  before  me, — 
a  very  limited  landscape,  with  scarcely  one  old  friend  left 
in  it.  I  see  a  smallish  room,  with  a  bow-window  looking 
south,  a  bookcase  full  of  books,  three  or  four  drawings, 
and  a  library  chair  and  table  (once  the  property  of  my 
old  friend  Kenyon  —  I  am  writing  on  the  table  now), 
and  you  have  the  greater  part  of  the  vision  before  you. 
Is  this  the  end  of  all  things  ?  I  believe  it  is  pretty  much 
like  most  scenes  in  the  fifth  act,  when  the  green  (or 
black)  curtain  is  about  to  drop  and  tell  you  that  the  play 
of  Hamlet  or  of  John  Smith  is  over.  But  wait  a  little. 
There  will  be  another  piece,  in  which  John  Smith  the 
younger  will  figure,  and  quite  eclipse  his  old,  stupid, 
wrinkled,  useless,  time-slaughtered  parent.  The  king  is 
dead,  —  long  live  the  king  ! " 

Kenyon  was  very  fond  of  Americans,  Professor  Ticknor 
and  Mr.  George  S.  Hillard  being  especially  dear  to  him. 
I  remember  hearing  him  say  one  day  that  the  "  best  pre- 
pared" young  foreigner  he  had  ever  met,  who  had  come 
to  see  Europe,  was  Mr.  Hillard.  One  day  at  his  dinner- 
table,  in  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Jameson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle,  Walter  Savage  Lanclor,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Brown- 
ing, and  the  Procters,  I  heard  him  declare  that  one  of  the 
best  talkers  on  any  subject  that  might  be  started  at  the 
social  board  was  the  author  of  "  Six  Months  in  Italy." 
16*  x 


370  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

It  was  at  a  breakfast  in  Kenyon's  house  that  I  first 
met  Walter  Savage  Landor,  whose  writings  are  full  of 
verbal  legacies  to  posterity.  As  I  entered  the  room  with 
Procter,  Landor  was  in  the  midst  of  an  eloquent  harangue 
on  the  high  art  of  portraiture.  Procter  had  been  lately 
sitting  to  a  daguerreotypist  for  a  picture,  and  Mrs.  Jame- 
son, who  was  very  fond  of  the  poet,  had  arranged  the 
camera  for  that  occasion.  Landor  wTas  holding  the  picture 
in  his  hand,  declaring  that  it  had  never  been  surpassed  as 
a  specimen  of  that  particular  art.  The  grand-looking 
author  of  "  Pericles  and  Aspasia  "  was  standing  in  the 
middle  of  the  room  when  we  entered,  and  his  voice 
sounded  like  an  explosion  of  first-class  artillery.  Seeing 
Procter  enter,  he  immediately  began  to  address  him  com- 
pliments in  high-sounding  Latin.  Poor  modest  Procter 
pretended  to  stop  his  ears  that  he  might  not  listen  to 
Landor's  eulogistic  phrases.  Kenyon  came  to  the  rescue 
by  declaring  the  breakfast  had  been  waiting  half  an  hour. 
When  we  arrived  at  the  table  Landor  asked  Procter  to 
join  him  on  an  expedition  into  Spain  which  he  was  then 
contemplating.  "  No,"  said  Procter,  "  for  I  cannot  even 
'walk  Spanish,'  and  having  never  crossed  the  Channel,  I 
do  not  intend  to  begin  now." 

"Never  crossed  the  Channel!"  roared  Landor, — "never 
saw  Napoleon  Bonaparte  ! "  He  then  began  to  tell  us 
how  the  young  Corsican  looked  when  he  first  saw  him, 
saying  that  he  had  the  olive  complexion  and  roundness 
of  face  of  a  Greek  girl ;  that  the  consul's  voice  was  deep 
and  melodious,  but  untruthful  in  tone.  While  we  were 
eating  breakfast  he  went  on  to  describe  his  Italian  travels 
in  early  youth,  telling  us  that  he  once  saw  Shelley  and 
Byron  meet  in  the  doorway  of  a  hotel  in  Pisa.  Landor 
had  lived  in  Italy  many  years,  for  he  detested  the  climate 
of  his  native  country,  and  used  to  say  "  one  could  only 
live  comfortably  in  England  who  was  rich  enough  to  have 
a  solar  system  of  his  own." 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"   AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     371 

The  Prince  of  Carpi  said  of  Erasmus  he  was  so  thin- 
skinned  that  a  fly  would  draw  blood  from  him.  The 
author  of  the  "  Imaginary  Conversations  "  had  the  same 
infirmity.  A  very  little  thing  would  disturb  him  for 
hours,  and  his  friends  were  never  sure  of  his  equanimity. 
I  was  present  once  when  a  blundering  friend  trod  unwit- 
tingly on  his  favorite  prejudice,  and  Landor  went  off  in- 
stanter  like  a  blaspheming  torpedo.  There  were  three 
things  in  the  world  which  received  no  quarter  at  his 
hands,  and  when  in  the  slightest  degree  he  scented  hy- 
pocrisy, pharisaism,  or  tyranny,  straightway  he  became 
furious,  and  laid  about  him  like  a  mad  giant. 

Procter  told  me  that  when  Landor  got  into  a  passion, 
his  rage  was  sometimes  uncontrollable.  The  fiery  spirit 
knew  his  weakness,  but  his  anger  quite  overmastered  him 
in  spite  of  himself.  "  Keep  your  temper,  Landor,"  some- 
body said  to  him  one  day  when  he  was  raging.  "  That  is 
just  what  I  don't  wish  to  keep,"  he  cried ;  "  I  wish  to  be 
rid  of  such  an  infamous,  ungovernable  thing.  I  don't 
wish  to  keep  my  temper."  "Whoever  wishes  to  get  a  good 
look  at  Landor  will  not  seek  for  it  alone  in  John  Forster's 
interestin<>  life  of  the  old  man,  admirable  as  it  is,  but  will 
turn  to  Dickens's  "  Bleak  House  "  for  side  glances  at  the 
great  author.  In  that  vivid  story  Dickens  has  made  his 
friend  Landor  sit  for  the  portrait  of  Lawrence  Boythorn. 
The  very  laugh  that  made  the  whole  house  vibrate,  the 
roundness  and  fulness  of  voice,  the  fury  of  superlatives, 
are  all  o-iven  in  Dickens's  best  manner,  and  no  one 
who  has  ever  seen  Landor  for  half  an  hour  could  pos- 
sibly mistake  Boythorn  for  anybody  else.  Talking  the 
matter  over  once  with  Dickens,  he  said,  "Landor  always 
took  that  presentation  of  himself  in  hearty  good-humor, 
and  seemed  rather  proud  of  the  picture."  This  is  Dick- 
ens's portrait :  "  He  was  not  only  a  very  handsome  old 
gentleman,  upright  and   stalwart,   with  a  massive  gray 


372  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

head,  a  fine  composure  of  face  when  silent,  a  figure  that 
might  have  become  corpulent  but  for  his  being  so  con- 
tinually in  earnest  that  he  gave  it  no  rest,  and  a  chin  that 
mifht  have  subsided  into  a  double  chin  but  for  the  vehe- 
ment  emphasis  in  which  it  was  constantly  required  to 
assist ;  but  he  was  such  a  true  gentleman  in  his  manner, 
so  chivalrously  polite,  his  face  was  lighted  by  a  smile  of 
so  much  sweetness  and  tenderness,  and  it  seemed  so  plain 
that  he  had  nothing  to  hide,  that  really  I  could  not  help 
looking  at  him  with  equal  pleasure,  whether  he  smilingly 
conversed  with  Ada  and  me,  or  was  led  by  Mr.  Jarndyce 
into  some  great  volley  of  superlatives,  or  threw  up  his 
head  like  a  bloodhound,  and  gave  out  that  tremendous 
Ha!   ha!   ha!" 

Landor's  energetic  gravity,  when  he  was  proposing 
some  colossal  impossibility,  the  observant  novelist  would 
naturally  seize  on,  for  Dickens  was  always  on  the  lookout 
for  exaggerations  in  human  language  and  conduct.  It 
was  at  Procter's  table  I  heard  Dickens  describe  a  scene 
which  transpired  after  the  publication  of  the  "  Old  Curi- 
osity Shop."  It  seems  that  the  first  idea  of  Little  Nell 
occurred  to  Dickens  when  he  was  on  a  birthday  visit  to 
Laudor,  then  living  in  Bath.  The  old  man  was  residing 
in  lodgings  in  St.  James  Square,  in  that  city,  and  ever 
after  connected  Little  Nell  with  that  particular  spot.  No 
character  in  prose  fiction  was  a  greater  favorite  with 
Landor,  and  one  day,  years  after  the  story  was  published, 
he  burst  out  with  a  tremendous  emphasis,  and  declared 
the  one  mistake  of  his  life  was  that  he  had  not  purchased 
the  house  in  Bath,  and  then  and  there  burned  it  to  the 
ground,  so  that  no  meaner  association  should  ever  dese- 
crate the  birthplace  of  Little  Nell ! 

It  was  Procter's  old  schoolmaster  (Dr.  Drury,  head- 
master of  Harrow)  who  was  the  means  of  introducing 
Edmund  Kean,  the   great  actor,  on   the  London  stage. 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     373 

Procter  delighted  to  recall  the  many  theatrical  triumphs 
of  the  eccentric  tragedian,  and  the  memoir  which  he 
printed  of  Kean  will  always  be  read  with  interest.  I 
heard  the  poet  one  evening  describe  the  player  most 
graphically  as  he  appeared  in  Sir  Giles  Overreach  in 
1816  at  Drury  Lane,  when  he  produced  such  an  effect  on 
Lord  Byron,  who  sat  that  night  in  a  stage-box  with  Tom 
Moore.  His  lordship  was  so  overcome  by  Kean's  mag- 
nificent acting  that  he  fell  forward  in  a  convulsive  fit, 
and  it  was  some  time  before  he  regained  his  wonted  com- 
posure. Douglas  Jerrold  said  that  Kean's  appearance  in 
Shakespeare's  Jew  was  like  a  chapter  out  of  Genesis,  and 
all  who  have  seen  the  incomparable  actor  speak  of  his 
tiger-like  power  and  infinite  grace  as  unrivalled. 

At  Procter's  house  the  best  of  England's  celebrated 
men  and  women  assembled,  and  it  was  a  kind  of  enchant- 
ment to  converse  with  the  ladies  one  met  there.  It  was 
indeed  a  privilege  to  be  received  by  the  hostess  herself, 
for  Mrs.  Procter  was  not  only  sure  to  be  the  most  brill- 
iant person  among  her  guests,  but  she  practised  habitually 
that  exquisite  courtesy  toward  all  which  renders  even  a 
stranger,  unwonted  to  London  drawing-rooms,  free  from 
awkwardness  and  that  constraint  which  are  almost  in- 
separable from  a  first  appearance. 

Among  the  persons  I  have  seen  at  that  house  of  ur- 
banity in  London  I  distinctly  recall  old  Mrs.  Montague, 
the  mother  of  Mrs.  Procter.  She  had  met  Kobert  Burns 
in  Edinburgh  when  he  first  came  up  to  that  city  to  bring 
out  his  volume  of  poems.  "  I  have  seen  many  a  hand- 
some man  in  my  time,"  said  the  old  lady  one  day  to  us 
at  dinner,  "  but  never  such  a  pair  of  eyes  as  young  Eobbie 
Burns  kept  flashing  from  under  his  beautiful  brow."  Mrs. 
Montague  was  much  interested  in  Charles  Sumner,  and 
predicted  for  him  all  the  eminence  of  his  after-position. 
With  a  certain  other  American  visitor  she  had  no  patience, 


374  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 

and  spoke  of  him  to  me  as  a  "  note  of  interrogation,  too 
curious  to  be  comfortable." 

I  distinctly  recall  Adelaide  Procter  as  I  first  saw  her 
on  one  of  my  early  visits  to  her  father's  house.  She  was 
a  shy,  bright  girl,  and  the  poet  drew  my  attention  to  her 
as  she  sat  reading  in  a  corner  of  the  library.  Looking 
at  the  young  maiden,  intent  on  her  book,  I  remembered 
that  exquisite  sonnet  in  her  father's  volume,  bearing  date 
November,  1825,  addressed  to  the  infant  just  a  month 
after  her  birth  :  — 

"  Child  of  my  heart !     My  sweet,  beloved  First-born  ! 
Thou  dove  who  tidings  bring'st  of  calmer  hours  ! 
Thou  rainbow  who  dost  shine  when  all  the  showers 
Are  past  or  passing  !     Rose  which  hath  no  thorn, 
No  spot,  no  blemish,  — pure  and  unforlorn, 
Untouched,  untainted  !     0  my  Flower  of  flowers  ! 
More  welcome  than  to  bees  are  summer  bowers, 
To  stranded  seamen  life-assuring  morn  ! 
"Welcome,  a  thousand  welcomes  !     Care,  who  clings 
Round  all,  seems  loosening  now  its  serpent  fold: 
New  hope  springs  upward  ;  and  the  bright  world  seems 
Cast  back  into  a  youth  of  endless  springs  ! 
Sweet  mother,  is  it  so  ?  or  grow  I  old, 
Bewildered  in  divine  Elysian  dreams  ? " 

I  whispered  in  the  poet's  ear  my  admiration  of  the  son- 
net and  the  beautiful  subject  of  it  as  we  sat  looking  at 
her  absorbed  in  the  volume  on  her  knees.  Procter,  in 
response,  murmured  some  words  expressive  of  his  joy  at 
having  such  a  gift  from  God  to  gladden  his  affectionate 
heart,  and  he  told  me  afterward  what  a  comfort  Adelaide 
had  always  been  to  Ids  household.  He  described  to  me  a 
visit  Wordsworth  made  to  his  house  one  day,  and  how 
gentle  the  old  man's  aspect  was  when  he  looked  at  the 
children.  "He  took  the  hand  of  my  dear  Adelaide  in 
his,"  said  Procter,  "  and  spoke  some  words  to  her,  the  rec- 
ollection of  which  helped,  perhaps,  with  other  things,  to 
incline  her  to  poetry."      When  a  little  child  "the  golden- 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     375 

tressed  Adelaide,"  as  the  poet  calls  her  in  one  of  his 
songs,  must  often  have  heard  her  father  read  aloud  his 
own  poems  as  they  came  fresh  from  the  fount  of  song, 
and  the  impression  no  doubt  wrought  upon  her  young 
imagination  a  spell  she  could  not  resist.  On  a  sensitive 
mind  like  hers  such  a  piece  as  the  "  Petition  to  Time " 
could  not  fail  of  producing  its  full  effect,  and  no  girl  of 
her  temperament  would  be  unmoved  by  the  music  of 
words  like  these  :  — 

"Touch  us  gently,  Time  ! 

Let  us  glide  adown  thy  stream 
Gently,  as  we  sometimes  glide 

Through  a  quiet  dream. 
Humble  voyagers  are  we, 
Husband,  wife,  and  children  three. 
(One  is  lost,  an  angel,  fled 
To  the  azure  overhead.) 

"  Touch  us  gently,  Time  ! 

We  've  not  proud  nor  soaring  wings  : 
Our  ambition,  our  content, 

Lie  in  simple  things. 
Humble  voyagers  are  we, 
O'er  Life's  dim  unsounded  sea, 
Seeking  only  some  calm  clime  : 
Touch  us  gently,  gentle  Time  !  " 

Adelaide  Procter's  name  will  always  be  sweet  in  the 
annals  of  English  poetry.  Her  place  was  assured  from 
the  time  when  she  made  her  modest  advent,  in  1853,  in 
the  columns  of  Dickens's  "Household  Words,"  and  every- 
thing she  wrote  from  that  period  onward  until  she  died 
gave  evidence  of  striking  and  peculiar  talent.  I  have 
heard  Dickens  describe  how  she  first  began  to  proffer 
contributions  to  his  columns  over  a  feigned  name,  that 
of  Miss  Mary  Berwick  ;  how  he  came  to  think  that  his 
unknown  correspondent  must  be  a  governess ;  how,  as 
time  went  on,  he  learned  to  value  his  new  contributor  for 
her  self-reliance  and  punctuality,  —  qualities  upon  which 


376  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Dickens  always  placed  a  high  value ;  how  at  last,  going 
to  dine  one  day  with  his  old  friends  the  Procters,  he 
launched  enthusiastically  out  in  praise  of  Mary  Berwick 
(the  writer  herself,  Adelaide  Procter,  sitting  at  the  table) ; 
and  how  the  delighted  mother,  being  in  the  secret, 
revealed,  with  tears  of  joy,  the  real  name  of  the  young 
aspirant.  Although  Dickens  has  told  the  whole  story 
most  feelingly  in  an  introduction  to  Miss  Procter's 
"  Legends  and  Lyrics,"  issued  after  her  death,  to  hear  it 
from  his  own  lips  and  sympathetic  heart,  as  I  have  done, 
was,  as  may  be  imagined,  something  better  even  than 
reading   his  pathetic  words  on  the  printed  page. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  ladies  in  London  literary 
society  in  the  period  of  which  I  am  writing  was  Mrs. 
Jameson,  the  dear  and  honored  friend  of  Procter  and 
his  family.  During  many  years  of  her  later  life  she 
stood  in  the  relation  of  consoler  to  her  sex  in  England. 
Women  in  mental  anguish  needing  consolation  and  coun- 
sel fled  to  her  as  to  a  convent  for  protection  and  guid- 
ance. Her  published  writings  established  such  a  claim 
upon  her  sympathy  in  the  hearts  of  her  readers  that  much 
of  her  time  for  twenty  years  before  she  died  was  spent  in 
helping  others,  by  correspondence  and  personal  contact, 
to  submit  to  the  sorrows  God  had  cast  upon  them.  She 
believed,  with  Milton,  that  it  is  miserable  enough  to  be 
blind,  but  still  more  miserable  not  to  be  able  to  bear 
blindness.  Her  own  earlier  life  had  been  darkened  by 
griefs,  and  she  knew  from  a  deep  experience  what  it  was 
to  enter  the  cloud  and  stand  waiting  and  hoping  in  the 
shadows.  In  her  instructive  and  delightful  society  I 
spent  many  an  hour  twenty  years  ago  in  the  houses  of 
Procter  and  Rogers  and  Kenyon.  Procter,  knowing  my 
admiration  of  the  Kemble  family,  frequently  led  the  con- 
versation  up  to  that  regal  line  which  included  so  many 
men  and  women  of  genius.      Mrs.    Jameson  was  never 


"BARRY   CORNWALL"   AND   HIS  FRIENDS.     377 


weary  of  being  questioned  as  to  the  legitimate  supremacy 
of  Mrs.  Siddons  and  her  nieces,  Fanny  and  Adelaide 
Kemble.  While  Rogers  talked  of  Garrick,  and  Procter  of 
Kean,  she  had  no  enthusiasms  that  were  not  bounded  in 
by  those  fine  spirits  whom  she  had  watched  and  wor- 
shipped from  her  earliest  years. 

Now  and  then  in  the  garden  of  life  we  get  that  special 
bite  out  of  the  sunny  side  of  a  peach.  One  of  my  own 
memorable  experiences  in  that  way  came  in  this  wise.  I 
had  heard,  long  before  I  went  abroad,  so  much  of  the 
singing  of  the  youngest  child  of  the  "Olympian  dy- 
nasty," Adelaide  Kemble,  so  much  of  a  brief  career 
crowded  with  triumphs  on  the  lyric  stage,  that  I  longed, 
if  it  might  be  possible,  to  listen  to  the  "  true  daughter 
of  her  race."  The  rest  of  her  family  for  years  had  been, 
as  it  were,  "  nourished  on  Shakespeare,"  and  achieved 
greatness  in  that  high  walk  of  genius ;  but  now  came  one 
who  could  interpret  Mozart,  Bellini,  and  Mercadaute,  one 
who  could  equal  what  Pasta  and  Malibran  and  Persiani 
and  Grisi  had  taught  the  world  to  understand  and  wor- 
ship. "  Ah  ! "  said  a  friend,  "  if  you  could  only  hear  her 
sing  '  Casta  Diva ' !  "  "  Yes,"  said  another,  "  and  '  Auld 
Robin  Gray'!"  No  wonder,  I  thought,  at  the  universal 
enthusiasm  for  a  vocal  and  lyrical  artist  who  can  alter- 
nate with  equal  power  from  "  Casta  Diva "  to  "  Auld 
Robin  Gray."  I  must  hear  her !  She  had  left  the  stage, 
after  a  brief  glory  upon  it,  but  as  Madame  Sartoris  she 
sometimes  sang  at  home  to  her  guests. 

"We  are  invited  to  hear  some  music,  this  evening," 
said  Procter  to  me  one  day,  "  and  you  must  go  with  us." 
I  went,  and  our  hostess  was  the  once  magnificent  prima 
donna !  At  intervals  throughout  the  evening,  with  a 
voice 

"  That  crowds  and  hurries  and  precipitates 
With  thick  fast  warble  its  delicious  notes," 


378  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

she  poured  out  her  full  soul  in  melody.  We  all  know 
her  now  as  the  author  of  that  exquisite  "  Week  in  a 
French  Country-House,"  and  her  fascinating  book  some- 
how always  mingles  itself  in  my  memory  with  the  en- 
chanted evening  when  I  heard  her  sing.  As  she  sat  at 
the  piano  in  all  her  majestic  beauty,  I  imagined  her  a  sort 
of  later  St.  Cecilia,  and  could  have  wished  for  another 
Raphael  to  paint  her  worthily.  Henry  Chorley,  who  was 
present  on  that  memorable  evening,  seemed  to  be  in  a 
kind  of  nervous  rapture  at  hearing  again  the  supreme 
and  willing  singer.  Procter  moved  away  into  a  dim  cor- 
ner of  the  room,  and  held  his  tremulous  hand  over  his 
eyes.  The  old  poet's  sensitive  spirit  seemed  at  times  to 
be  going  out  on  the  breath  of  the  glorious  artist  who  was 
thrilling  us  all  with  her  power.  Mrs.  Jameson  bent  for- 
ward to  watch  every  motion  of  her  idol,  looking  applause 
at  every  noble  passage.  Another  lady,  whom  I  did  not 
know,  was  tremulous  with  excitement,  and  I  could  well 
imagine  what  might  have  taken  place  when  the  "  impas- 
sioned chan tress  "  sang  and  enacted  Semiramide  as  I  have 
heard  it  described.  Every  one  present  was  inspired  by 
her  fine  mien,  as  well  as  by  her  transcendent  voice. 
Mozart,  Rossini,  Bellini,  Cherubini,  —  how  she  flung  her- 
self that  night,  with  all  her  gifts,  into  their  highest  com- 
positions !  As  she  rose  and  was  walking  away  from  the 
piano,  after  singing  an  air  from  the  "  Medea "  with  a 
pathos  that  no  musically  uneducated  pen  like  mine  can 
or  ought  to  attempt  a  description  of,  some  one  intercepted 
her  and  whispered  a  request.  Again  she  turned,  and 
walked  toward  the  instrument  like  a  queen  among  her 
admiring  court.  A  flash  of  lightning,  followed  by  a  peal 
of  thunder  that  jarred  the  house,  stopped  her  for  a 
moment  on  her  way  to  the  piano.  A  sudden  summer 
tempest  was  gathering,  and  crash  after  crash  made  it  im- 
possible for  her  to  begin.     As  she  stood  waiting  for  the 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     379 

"  elemental  fury "  to  subside,  her  attitude  was  quite 
worthy  of  the  niece  of  Mrs.  Siddons.  When  the  thunder 
had  grown  less  frequent,  she  threw  back  her  beautiful 
classic  head  and  touched  the  keys.  The  air  she  had  been 
called  upon  to  sing  was  so  wild  and  weird,  a  dead  silence 
fell  upon  the  room,  and  an  influence  as  of  terror  pervaded 
the  whole  assembly.  It  was  a  song  by  Dessauer,  which 
he  had  composed  for  her  voice,  the  words  by  Tennyson. 
No  one  who  was  present  that  evening  can  forget  how  she 
broke  the  silence  with 

"  We  were  two  daughters  of  one  race," 

or  how  she  uttered  the  words, 

"The  wind  is  roaring  in  turret  and  tree." 

It  was  like  a  scene  in  a  great  tragedy,  and  then  I  fully 
understood  the  worship  she  had  won  as  belonging  only  to 
those  consummate  artists  who  have  arisen  to  dignify  and 
ennoble  the  lyric  stage.  As  we  left  the  house  Procter 
said,  "  You  are  in  great  luck  to-night.  I  never  heard  her 
sing  more  divinely." 

The  Poet  frequently  spoke  to  me  of  the  old  days  when 
he  was  contributing  to  the  "  London  Magazine,"  which 
fifty  years  ago  was  deservedly  so  popular  in  Great  Britain. 
All  the  "best  talent"  (to  use  a  modern  advertisement 
phrase)  wrote  for  it.  Carlyle  sent  his  papers  on  Schiller 
to  be  printed  in  it ;  De  Quincey's  "  Confessions  of  an 
English  Opium-Eater "  appeared  in  its  pages ;  and  the 
essays  of  "  Elia  "  came  out  first  in  that  potent  periodical ; 
Landor,  Keats,  and  John  Bowring  contributed  to  it ;  and 
to  have  printed  a  prose  or  poetical  article  in  the  "  Lon- 
don "  entitled  a  man  to  be  asked  to  dine  out  anywhere 
in  society  in  those  days.  In  1821  the  proprietors  began 
to  give  dinners  in  Waterloo  Place  once  a  month  to  their 
contributors,  who,  after  the  cloth  was  removed,  were  ex- 
pected to  talk  over  the  prospects  of  the  magazine,  and  lay 


380  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

out  the  contents  for  next  month.  Procter  described  to 
me  the  authors  of  his  generation  as  they  sat  round  the 
old  "  mahogany-tree  "  of  that  period.  "  Very  social  and 
expansive  hours  they  passed  in  that  pleasant  room  half 
a  century  ago.  Thither  came  stalwart  Allan  Cunning- 
ham, with  his  Scotch  face  shining  with  good-nature ; 
Charles  Lamb,  '  a  Diogenes  with  the  heart  of  a  St.  John ' ; 
Hamilton  Reynolds,  whose  good  temper  and  vivacity  were 
like  condiments  at  a  feast ;  John  Clare,  the  peasant-poet, 
simple  as  a  daisy ;  Tom  Hood,  young,  silent,  and  grave, 
but  who  nevertheless  now  and  then  shot  out  a  pun  that 
damaged  the  shaking  sides  of  the  whole  company ;  De 
Quincey,  self-involved  and  courteous,  rolling  out  his  peri- 
ods with  a  pomp  and  splendor  suited,  perhaps,  to  a  high 
Roman  festival ;  and  with  these  sons  of  fame  gathered 
certain  nameless  folk  whose  contributions  to  the  great 
'  London '  are  now  under  the  protection  of  that  tremen- 
dous power  which  men  call  Oblivion." 

It  was  a  vivid  pleasure  to  hear  Procter  describe  Edward 
Irving,  the  eccentric  preacher,  who  made  such  a  deep  im- 
pression on  the  spirit  of  his  time.  He  is  now  dislimned 
into  space,  but  he  was,  according  to  all  his  thoughtful 
contemporaries,  a  "  son  of  thunder,"  a  "  giant  force  of  ac- 
tivity." Procter  fully  indorsed  all  that  Carlyle  has  so 
nobly  written  of  the  eloquent  man  who,  dying  at  forty- 
two,  has  stamped  his  strong  personal  vitality  on  the  age 
in  which  he  lived. 

Procter,  in  his  younger  days,  was  evidently  much  im- 
pressed by  that  clever  rascal  who,  under  the  name  of 
"  Janus  Weathercock,"  scintillated  at  intervals  in  the  old 
"  London  Magazine."  Wainwright  —  for  that  was  his 
real  name  —  was  so  brilliant,  he  made  friends  for  a  time 
among  many  of  the  first-class  contributors  to  that  once 
famous  periodical ;  but  the  Ten  Commandments  ruined 
all  his  prospects  for  life.     A  murderer,  a  forger,  a  thief, 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.    381 

—  in  short,  a  sinner  in  general,  —  he  came  to  grief  rather 
early  in  his  wicked  career,  and  suffered  penalties  of  the 
law  accordingly,  but  never  to  the  full  extent  of  his  re- 
markable deserts.  I  have  heard  Procter  describe  his  per- 
sonal appearance  as  he  came  sparkling  into  the  room,  clad 
in  undress  military  costume.  His  smart  conversation 
deceived  those  about  him  into  the  belief  that  he  had  been 
an  officer  in  the  dragoons,  that  he  had  spent  a  large  for- 
tune, and  now  condescended  to  take  a  part  in  periodical 
literature  with  the  culture  of  a  gentleman  and  the  grace 
of  an  amateur.  How  this  vapid  charlatan  in  a  braided 
surtout  and  prismatic  necktie  could  so  long  veil  his  real 
character  from,  and  retain  the  regard  of,  such  men  as 
Procter  and  Talfourd  and  Coleridge  is  amazing.  Lamb 
calls  him  the  "kind  and  light-hearted  Janus,"  and  thought 
he  liked  him.  The  contributors  often  spoke  of  his  guile- 
less nature  at  the  festal  monthly  board  of  the  magazine, 
and  no  one  dreamed  that  this  gay  and  mock-smiling  Lon- 
don cavalier  was  about  to  begin  a  career  so  foul  and  mon- 
strous that  the  annals  of  crime  for  centuries  have  no 
blacker  pages  inscribed  on  them.  To  secure  the  means 
of  luxurious  living  without  labor,  and  to  pamper  his 
dandy  tastes,  this  lounging,  lazy  litterateur  resolved  to 
become  a  murderer  on  a  large  scale,  and  accompany  his 
cruel  poisonings  with  forgeries  whenever  they  were  most 
convenient.  His  custom  for  years  was  to  effect  policies 
of  insurance  on  the  lives  of  his  relations,  and  then  at  the 
proper  time  administer  strychnine  to  his  victims.  The 
heart  sickens  at  the  recital  of  his  brutal  crimes.  On  the 
life  of  a  beautiful  young  girl  named  Abercrombie  this 
fiendish  wretch  effected  an  insurance  at  various  offices  for 
£18,000  before  he  sent  her  to  her  account  with  the  rest 
of  his  poisoned  too-confiding  relatives.  So  many  heavily 
insured  ladies  dying  in  violent  convulsions  drew  atten- 
tion to  the  gentleman  who  always  called  to  collect  the 


382  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

money.  But  why  this  consumate  crimminal  was  not 
brought  to  justice  and  hung,  my  Lord  Abinger  never  sat- 
isfactorily divulged.  At  last  this  polished  Sybarite,  who 
boasted  that  he  always  drank  the  richest  Montepulciano, 
who  could  not  sit  long  in  a  room  that  was  not  garlanded 
with  flowers,  who  said  he  felt  lonely  in  an  apartment 
without  a  fine  cast  of  the  Venus  de'  Medici  in  it,  —  this 
self-indulgent  voluptuary  at  last  committed  several  for- 
geries on  the  Bank  of  England,  and  the  Old  Bailey  ses- 
sions of  July,  1837,  sentenced  him  to  transportation  for 
life.  "While  he  was  lying  in  Newgate  prior  to  his  depart- 
ure, with  other  convicts,  to  New  South  Wales,  where  he 
died,  Dickens  went  with  a  former  acquaintance  of  the 
prisoner  to  see  him.  They  found  him  still  possessed  with 
a  morbid  self-esteem  and  a  poor  and  empty  vanity.  All 
other  feelings  and  interests  were  overwhelmed  by  an  ex- 
cessive idolatry  of  self,  and  he  claimed  (I  now  quote  his 
own  words  to  Dickens)  a  soul  whose  nutriment  is  love, 
and  its  offspring  art,  music,  divine  song,  and  still  holier 
philosophy.  To  the  last  this  super-refined  creature  seemed 
undisturbed  by  remorse.  What  place  can  we  fancy  for 
such  a  reptile,  and  what  do  we  learn  from  such  a  career  ? 
Talfourd  has  so  wisely  summed  up  the  whole  case  for  us 
that  I  leave  the  dark  tragedy  with  the  recital  of  this  sol- 
emn sentence  from  a  paper  on  the  culprit  in  the  "  Final 
Memorials  of  Charles  Lamb":  "  Wainwright's  vanity,  nur- 
tured by  selfishness  and  unchecked  by  religion,  became  a 
disease,  amounting  perhaps  to  monomania,  and  yielding 
one  lesson  to  repay  the  world  for  his  existence,  viz.  that 
there  is  no  state  of  the  soul  so  dangerous  as  that  in  which 
the  vices  of  the  sensualist  are  envenomed  by  the  grovel- 
ling intellect  of  the  scorner." 

One  of  the  men  best  worth  meeting  in  London,  under 
any  circumstances,  was  Leigh  Hunt,  but  it  was  a  special 
boon  to  find  him  and  Procter  together.     I  remember  a 


WO 


1&0L  J.  W" 


"BARRY   CORNWALL"   AND   HIS   FRIENDS.     383 


day  in  the  summer  of  1859  when  Procter  had  a  party  of 
friends  at  dinner  to  meet  Hawthorne,  who  was  then  on  a 
brief  visit  to  London.  Among  the  guests  were  the  Count- 
ess of ,  Kinglake,  the  author  of  "  Eothen,"  Charles 

Sumner,  then  on  his  way  to  Paris,  and  Leigh  Hunt,  the 
mercurial  qualities  of  whose  blood  were  even  then  per- 
ceptible in  his  manner. 

Adelaide  Procter  did  not  reach  home  in  season  to  begin 
the  dinner  with  us,  but  she  came  later  in  the  evening,  and 
sat  for  some  time  in  earnest  talk  with  Hawthorne.  It 
was  a  "  goodly  companie,"  long  to  be  remembered.  Hunt 
and  Procter  were  in  a  mood  for  gossip  over  the  ruddy 
port.  As  the  twilight  deepened  around  the  table,  which 
was  exquisitely  decorated  with  flowers,  the  author  of 
"  Rimini "  recalled  to  Procter's  recollection  other  memo- 
rable tables  where  they  used  to  meet  in  vanished  days 
with  Lamb,  Coleridge,  and  others  of  their  set  long  since 
passed  away.  As  they  talked  on  in  rather  low  tones,  I 
saw  the  two  old  poets  take  hands  more  than  once  at  the 
mention  of  dead  and  beloved  names.  I  recollect  they 
had  a  good  deal  of  fine  talk  over  the  great  singers  whose 
voices  had  delighted  them  in  bygone  days  ;  speaking  with 
rapture  of  Pasta,  whose  tones  in  opera  they  thought  in- 
comparably the  grandest  musical  utterances  they  had  ever 
heard.     Procter's  tribute  in  verse  to  this 

"  Queen  and  wonder  of  the  enchanted  world  of  sound  " 

is  one  of  his  best  lyrics,  and  never  was  singer  more 
divinely  complimented  by  poet.  At  the  dinner  I  am 
describing  he  declared  that  she  walked  on  the  stage  like 
an  empress,  "  and  when  she  sang,"  said  he,  "  I  held  my 
breath."  Leigh  Hunt,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Procter  in 
1831,  says:  "As  to  Pasta,  I  love  her,  for  she  makes  the 
ground  firm  under  my  feet,  and  the  sky  blue  over  my 
head." 


384  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

I  cannot  remember  all  the  good  things  I  heard  that 
day,  but  some  of  them  live  in  my  recollection  still.  Hunt 
quoted  Hartley  Coleridge,  who  said,  "No  boy  ever  im- 
agined himself  a  poet  while  he  was  reading  Shakespeare 
or  Milton."  And  speaking  of  Lander's  oaths,  he  said, 
"  They  are  so  rich,  they  are  really  nutritious."  Talking 
of  criticism,  he  said  he  did  not  believe  in  spiteful  imps, 
but  in  kindly'elves  who  would  "nod  to  him  and  do  him 
courtesies."  He  laughed  at  Bishop  Berkeley's  attempt  to 
destroy  the  world  in  one  octavo  volume.  His  doctrine  to 
mankind  always  was,  "  Enlarge  your  tastes,  that  you  may 
enlarge  your  hearts."  He  believed  in  reversing  original 
propensities  by  education,  —  as  Spallanzani  brought  up 
eagles  on  bread  and  milk,  and  fed  doves  on  raw  meat. 
"  Don't  let  us  demand  too  much  of  human  nature,"  was  a 
line  in  his  creed ;  and  he  believed  in  Hood's  advice,  that 
gentleness  in  a  case  of  wrong  direction  is  always  better 
than  vituperation. 

"Mid  light,  and  by  degrees,  should  be  the  plan 
To  cure  the  dark  and  erring  mind ; 
But  who  would  rush  at  a  benighted  man 

And  give  him  two  black  eyes  for  being  blind  ?" 

I  recollect  there  was  much  converse  that  day  on  the 
love  of  reading  in  old  age,  and  Leigh  Hunt  observed  that 
Sir  Eobert  Walpole,  seeing  Mr.  Fox  busy  in  the  library 
at  Houghton,  said  to  him  :  "  And  you  can  read  !  Ah,  how 
I  envy  you  !  I  totally  neglected  the  habit  of  reading 
when  I  was  young,  and  now  in  my  old  age  I  cannot  read 
a  single  page."  Hunt  himself  was  a  man  who  could  be 
"penetrated  by  a  book."  It  was  inspiring  to  hear  him 
dilate  over  "  Plutarch's  Morals,"  and  quote  passages  from 
that  delightful  essay  on  "The  Tranquillity  of  the  Soul." 
He  had  such  reverence  for  the  wisdom  folded  up  on 
his  library  shelves,  he  declared  that  the  very  perusal 
of  the  backs  of  his  books  was  "  a  discipline  of  humanity." 


«BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.    385 

Whenever  and  wherever  I  met  this  charming  person,  I 
learned  a  lesson  of  gentleness  and  patience ;  for,  steeped 
to  the  lips  in  poverty  as  he  was,  he  was  ever  the  most 
cheerful,  the  most  genial  companion  and  friend.  He 
never  left  his  good-nature  outside  the  family  circle,  as  a 
Mussulman  leaves  his  slippers  outside  a  mosque,  but  he 
always  brought  a  smiling  face  into  the  house  with  him. 

T A ,  whose  fine  floating  wit  has  never  yet  quite 

condensed  itself  into  a  star,  said  one  day  of  a  Boston  man 
that  he  was  "  east-wind  made  flesh."  Leigh  Hunt  was 
exactly  the  opposite  of  this ;  he  was  compact  of  all  the 
spicy  breezes  that  blow.  In  his  bare  cottage  at  Hammer- 
smith the  temperament  of  his  fine  spirit  heaped  up  such 
riches  of  fancy  that  kings,  if  wise  ones,  might  envy  his 
magic  power. 

"Onward  in  faith,  and  leave  the  rest  to  Heaven," 

was  a  line  he  often  quoted.  There  was  about  him  such  a 
modest  fortitude  in  want  and  poverty,  such  an  inborn 
mental  superiority  to  low  and  uncomfortable  circum- 
stances, that  he  rose  without  effort  into  a  region  encom- 
passed  with  felicities,  untroubled  by  a  care  or  sorrow. 
He  always  reminded  me  of  that  favorite  child  of  the  genii 
who  carried  an  amulet  in  his  bosom  by  which  all  the  gold 
and  jewels  of  the  Sultan's  halls  were  no  sooner  beheld 
than  they  became  his  own.  If  he  sat  down  companion- 
less  to  a  solitary  chop,  his  imagination  transformed  it 
straightway  into  a  fine  shoulder  of  mutton.  When  he 
looked  out  of  his  dingy  old  windows  on  the  four  bleak 
elms  in  front  of  his  dwelling,  he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw, 
a  vast  forest,  and  he  could  hear  in  the  note  of  one  poor 
sparrow  even  the  silvery  voices  of  a  hundred  nightingales. 
Such  a  man  might  often  be  cold  and  hungry,  but  he  had 
the  wit  never  to  be  aware  of  it. 

Hunt's  love  for  Procter  was  deep  and  tender,  and  in 

17  T 


386  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

one  of  his  notes  to  me  he  says,  referring  to  the  meeting 
my  memory  has  been  trying  to  describe,  "  I  have  reasons 
for  liking  our  dear  friend  Procter's  wine  beyond  what 
you  saw  when  we  dined  together  at  his  table  the  other 
day."  Procter  prefixed  a  memoir  of  the  life  and  writings 
of  Ben  Jonson  to  the  great  dramatist's  works  printed  by 
Moxon  in  1838.  I  happen  to  be  the  lucky  owner  of  a 
copy  of  this  edition  that  once  belonged  to  Leigh  Hunt, 
who  has  enriched  it  and  perfumed  the  pages,  as  it  were, 
by  his  annotations.  The  memoir  abounds  in  felicities  of 
expression,  and  is  the  best  brief  chronicle  yet  made  of 
rare  Ben  and  his  poetry.  Leigh  Hunt  has  filled  the  mar- 
gins with  his  own  neat  handwriting,  and  as  I  turn  over 
the  leaves,  thus  companioned,  I  seem  to  meet  those  two 
loving  brothers  in  modern  song,  and  have  again  the  bene- 
fit of  their  sweet  society,  —  a  society  redolent  of 


"The  love  of  learning,  the  sequestered  nooks, 
And  all  the  sweet  serenity  of  books." 

I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  first  morning  I  walked  with 
Procter  and  Kenyon  to  the  famous  house  No.  22  St. 
James  Place,  overlooking  the  Green  Park,  to  a  breakfast 
with  Samuel  Eogers.  Mixed  up  with  this  matutinal  rite 
was  much  that  belongs  to  the  modern  literary  and  politi- 
cal history  of  England.  Fox,  Burke,  Talleyrand,  G rattan, 
Walter  Scott,  and  many  other  great  ones  have  sat  there 
and  held  converse  on  divers  matters  with  the  banker- 
poet.  For  more  than  half  a  century  the  wits  and  the 
wise  men  honored  that  unpretending  mansion  with  their 
presence.  On  my  way  thither  for  the  first  time  my  com- 
panions related  anecdote  after  anecdote  of  the  "ancient 
bard,"  as  they  called  our  host,  telling  me  also  how  all  his 
life  long  the  poet  of  Memory  had  been  giving  substantial 
aid  to  poor  authors  ;  how  he  had  befriended  Sheridan,  and 
how  good  he  had  been  to  Campbell  in  his  sorest  needs. 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"   AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     387 

Intellectual  or  artistic  excellence  was  a  sure  passport  to 
his  salon,  and  his  door  never  turned  on  reluctant  hinges 
to  admit  the  unfriended  man  of  letters  who  needed  his 
aid  and  counsel. 

We  arrived  in  quite  an  expectant  mood,  to  find  our 
host  already  seated  at  the  head  of  his  table,  and  his  good 
man  Edmund  standing  behind  his  chair.  As  we  entered 
the  room,  and  I  saw  Eogers  sitting  there  so  venerable  and 
strange,  I  was  reminded  of  that  line  of  Wordsworth's, 

"The  oldest  man  he  seemed  that  ever  wore  gray  hair." 

But  old  as  he  was,  he  seemed  full  of  verve,  vivacity,  and 
decision.  Knowing  his  homage  for  Ben  Franklin,  I  had 
brought  to  him  as  a  gift  from  America  an  old  volume 
issued  by  the  patriot  printer  in  1741.  He  was  delighted 
with  my  little  present,  and  began  at  once  to  say  how 
much  he  thought  of  Franklin's  prose.  He  considered 
the  style  admirable,  and  declared  that  it  might  be  studied 
now  for  improvement  in  the  art  of  composition.  One  of 
the  guests  that  morning  was  the  Eev.  Alexander  Dyce, 
the  scholarly  editor  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and  he 
very  soon  drew  Eogers  out  on  the  subject  of  Warren 
Hastings's  trial.  It  seemed  ghostly  enough  to  hear  that 
famous  event  depicted  by  one  who  sat  in  the  great  hall  of 
William  Eufus ;  who  day  after  day  had  looked  on  and  lis- 
tened to  the  eloquence  of  Fox  and  Sheridan  ;  who  had 
heard  Edmund  Burke  raise  his  voice  till  the  old  arches  of 
Irish  oak  resounded,  and  impeach  Warren  Hastings,  "  in 
the  name  of  both  sexes,  in  the  name  of  every  age,  in  the 
name  of  every  rank,  as  the  common  enemy  and  oppressor 
of  all."  It  thrilled  me  to  hear  Eogers  say,  "  As  I  walked 
up  Parliament  Street  with  Mrs.  Siddons,  after  hearing 
Sheridan's  great  speech,  we  both  agreed  that  never  before 
could  human  lips  have  uttered  more  eloquent  words." 
That  morning  Eogers  described  to  us  the  appearance  of 


388  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

Grattan  as  he  first  saw  and  heard  him  when  he  made  his 
first  speech  in  Parliament.  "  Some  of  us  were  inclined  to 
laugh,"  said  he,  "at  the  orator's  Irish  brogue  when  he 
began  his  speech  that  day,  but  after  he  had  been  on  his 
legs  five  minutes  nobody  dared  to  laugh  any  more." 
Then  followed  personal  anecdotes  of  Madame  De  Stael, 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  Walter  Scott,  Tom  Moore,  and 
Sydney  Smith,  all  exquisitely  told.  Both  our  host  and 
his  friend  Procter  had  known  or  entertained  most  of  the 
celebrities  of  their  day.  Procter  soon  led  the  conversa- 
tion up  to  matters  connected  with  the  stage,  and  thinking 
of  John  Kemble  and  Edmund  Kean,  I  ventured  to  ask 
Rogers  who  of  all  the  great  actors  he  had  seen  bore  away 
the  palm.  "  I  have  looked  upon  a  magnificent  procession 
of  them,"  he  said,  "  in  my  time,  and  I  never  saw  any  one 
superior  to  David  Garrick."  He  then  repeated  Hannah 
More's  couplet  on  receiving  as  a  gift  from  Mrs.  Garrick 
the  shoe-buckles  which  once  belonged  to  the  great 
actor : — 

"Thy  buckles,  0  Garrick,  another  may  use, 
But  none  shall  he  found  who  can  tread  in  thy  shoes." 

We  applauded  his  memory  and  his  manner  of  reciting 
the  lines,  which  seemed  to  please  him.  "  How  much  can 
sometimes  be  put  into  an  epigram  ! "  he  said  to  Procter, 
and  asked  him  if  he  remembered  the  lines  about  Earl 
Grey  and  the  Kaffir  war.  Procter  did  not  recall  them, 
and  Eogers  set  off  again  :  — 

"  A  dispute  has  arisen  of  late  at  the  Tape, 
As  touching  the  devil,  his  color  and  shape  ; 
While  some  folks  contend  that  the  devil  is  white, 
The  others  aver  that  he  's  black  as  midnight ; 
But  now  't  is  decided  quite  right  in  this  way, 
And  all  are  convinced  that,  the  devil  is  Grey." 

We.  asked  him  if  he  remembered  the  theatrical  excite- 
ment in  London  when  Garrick  and  his  troublesome  con- 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     389 

temporary,  Barry,  were  playing  King  Lear  at  rival  houses, 
and  dividing  the  final  opinion  of  the  critics.  "  Yes,"  said 
he,  "  perfectly.  I  saw  both  those  wonderful  actors,  and 
fully  agreed  at  the  time  with  the  admirable  epigram  that 
ran  like  wildfire  into  every  nook  and  corner  of  society." 
"  Did  the  epigram  still  live  in  his  memory  ? "  we  asked. 
The  old  man  seemed  looking  across  the  misty  valley  of 
time  for  a  few  moments,  and  then  gave  it  without  a 
pause : — 

"The  town  have  chosen  different  ways 
To  praise  their  different  Lears  ; 
To  Barry  they  give  loud  applause, 
To  Garrick  only  tears. 

"A  king  !  ay,  every  inch  a  king, 
Such  Barry  doth  appear  ; 
Bnt  Garrick  's  quite  another  thing,  — 
He  's  every  inch  King  Lear  !  " 

Among  other  things  which  Rogers  told  us  that  morning, 
I  remember  he  had  much  to  say  of  Byron's  forgctfulness 
as  to  all  manner  of  things.  As  an  evidence  of  his  inac- 
curacy, Rogers  related  how  the  noble  bard  had  once 
quoted  to  him  some  lines  on  Venice  as  Southey's,  "  which 
he  wanted  me  to  admire,"  said  Rogers ;  "  and  as  I  wrote 
them  myself,  I  had  no  hesitation  in  doing  so.  The  lines 
are  in  my  poem  on  Italy,  and  begin, 

"  '  There  is  a  glorious  city  in  the  sea.' " 

Samuel  Lawrence  had  recently  painted  in  oils  a  portrait 
of  Rogers,  and  we  asked  to  see  it ;  so  Edmund  was  sent 
up  stairs  to  get  it,  and  bring  it  to  the  table.  Rogers  him- 
self wished  to  compare  it  with  his  own  face,  and  had  a 
Looking-glass  held  before  him.  We  sat  by  in  silence  as 
he  regarded  the  picture  attentively,  and  waited  for  his 
criticism.     Soon   he   burst   out   with,   "  Is   my  nose   so 

d y  sharp  as  that  ? "      We  all  exclaimed,  "  No  !  no  ! 

the  artist  is  at  fault  there,  sir."     "  I  thought  so,"  he  cried  ; 


39°  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 

"  he  has  painted  the  face  of  a  dead  man,  d — n  him ! " 
Some  one  said,  "  The  portrait  is  too  hard."  "  I  won't  be 
painted  as  a  hard  man,"  rejoined  Eogers.  "  I  am  not  a 
hard  man,  am  I,  Procter  ? "  asked  the  old  poet.  Procter 
deprecated  with  energy  such  an  idea  as  that.  Looking  at 
the  portrait  again,  Rogers  said,  with  great  feeling,  "  Chil- 
dren would  run  away  from  that  face,  and  they  never  ran 
away  from  me  ! "  Notwithstanding  all  he  had  to  say 
against  the  portrait,  I  thought  it  a  wonderful  likeness,  and 
a  painting  of  great  value.  Moxon,  the  publisher,  who 
was  present,  asked  for  a  certain  portfolio  of  engraved 
heads  which  had  been  made  from  time  to  time  of  Rogers, 
and  this  was  brought  and  opened  for  our  examination  of 
its  contents.  Eogers  insisted  upon  looking  over  the  por- 
traits, and  he  amused  us  by  his  cutting  comments  on  each 
one  as  it  came  out  of  the  portfolio.  "  This,"  said  he, 
holding  one  up,  "  is  the  head  of  a  cunning  fellow,  and  this 
the  face  of  a  debauched  clergyman,  and  this  the  visage  of 
a  shameless  drunkard  ! "  After  a  comic  discussion  of  the 
pictures  of  himself,  which  went  on  for  half  an  hour,  he 
said,  "  It  is  time  to  change  the  topic,  and  set  aside  the  lit- 
tle man  for  a  very  great  oile.  Bring  me  my  collection  of 
Washington  portraits."  These  were  brought  in,  and  he 
had  much  to  say  of  American  matters.  He  remembered 
being  told,  when  a  boy,  by  his  father  one  day,  that  "  a  fight 
had  recently  occurred  at  a  place  called  Bunker  Hill,  in 
America."  He  then  inquired  about  Webster  and  the 
monument.  He  had  met  Webster  in  England,  and 
greatly  admired  him.  Now  and  then  his  memory  was  at 
fault,  and  he  spoke  occasionally  of  events  as  still  existing 
which  had  happened  half  a  century  before.  I  remember 
what  a  shock  it  gave  me  when  he  asked  me  if  Alexander 
Hamilton  had  printed  any  new  pamphlets  lately,  and 
begged  me  to  send  him  anything  that  distinguished  man 
might  publish  after  I  got  home  to  America. 


"BARRY   CORNWALL-'   AND   BIS   FRIENDS.     391 

I  recollect  how  delighted  I  was  when  Rogers  sent  me 
an  invitation  the  second  time  to  breakfast  with  him.  On 
that  occasion  the  poet  spoke  of  being  in  Paris  on  a  pleas- 
ure-tour with  Daniel  Webster,  and  he  grew  eloquent  over 
the  great  American  orator's  genius.  He  also  referred 
with  enthusiasm  to  Bryant's  poetry,  and  quoted  with 
deep  feeling  the  first  three  verses  of  "  The  Future  Life." 
When  he  pronounced  the  lines  :  — 

"  My  name  on  earth  was  ever  in  thy  prayer, 
And  must  thou  never  utter  it  iu  heaven  ?" 

his  voice  trembled,  and  he  faltered  out,  "  I  cannot  go  on : 
there  is  something  in  that  poem  which  breaks  me  down, 
and  I  must  never  try  again  to  recite  verses  so  full  of  ten- 
derness and  undying  love." 

For  Longfellow's  poems,  then  just  published  in  Eng- 
land, he  expressed  the  warmest  admiration,  and  thought 
the  author  of  "  Voices  of  the  Night "  one  of  the  most 
perfect  artists  in  English  verse  who  had  ever  lived. 

Rogers's  reminiscences  of  Holland  House  that  morning 
were  a  series  of  delightful  pictures  painted  by  an  artist 
who  left  out  none  of  the  salient  features,  but  gave  to 
everything  he  touched  a  graphic  reality.  In  his  narra- 
tions the  eloquent  men,  the  fine  ladies,  he  had  seen  there 
assembled  again  around  their  noble  host  and  hostess,  and 
one  listened  in  the  pleasant  breakfast-room  in  St.  James 
Place  to  the  wit  and  wisdom  of  that  brilliant  company 
which  met  fifty  years  ago  in  the  great  salon  of  that 
princely  mansion,  which  will  always  be  famous  in  the 
literary  and  political  history  of  England. 

Rogers  talked  that  morning  with  inimitable  finish  and 
grace  of  expression.  A  light  seemed  to  play  over  his 
faded  features  when  he  recalled  some  happy  past  experi- 
ence, and  his  eye  would  sometimes  fill  as  he  glanced  back 
among  his  kindred,  all  now  dead  save  one,  his  sister,  who 


392  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

also  lived  to  a  great  age.  His  head  was  very  fine,  and  I 
never  could  quite  understand  the  satirical  sayings  about 
his  personal  appearance  which  have  crept  into  the  literary 
gossip  of  his  time.  He  was  by  no  means  the  vivacious 
spectre  some  of  his  contemporaries  have  represented  him, 
and  I  never  thought  of  connecting  him  with  that  terrible 
line  in  "  The  Mirror  of  Magistrates,"  — 

"  His  withered  fist  still  striking  at  Death's  door." 

His  dome  of  brain  was  one  of  the  amplest  and  most  per- 
fectly shaped  I  ever  saw,  and  his  countenance  was  very 
far  from  unpleasant.  His  faculties  to  enjoy  had  not  per- 
ished with  age.  He  certainly  looked  like  a  well-seasoned 
author,  but  not  dropping  to  pieces  yet.  His  turn  of 
thought  was  characteristic,  and  in  the  main  just,  for  he 
loved  the  best,  and  was  naturally  impatient  of  what  was 
low  and  mean  in  conduct  and  intellect.  He  had  always 
lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  art,  and  his  reminiscences  of 
painters  and  sculptors  were  never  wearisome  or  dull.  He 
had  a  store  of  pleasant  anecdotes  of  Chantrey,  whom  lie 
had  employed  as  a  wood-carver  long  before  he  became  a 
modeller  in  clay ;  and  he  had  also  much  to  tell  us  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds,  whose  lectures  he  had  attended,  and 
whose  studio-talk  had  been  familiar  to  him  while  he  was 
a  young  man  and  studying  art  himself  as  an  amateur.  It 
was  impossible  almost  to  make  Rogers  seem  a  real  being 
as  we  used  to  surround  his  table  during  those  mornings 
and  sometimes  deep  into  the  afternoons.  We  were  listen- 
ing to  one  who  had  talked  with  Boswell  about  Dr.  John- 
son ;  who  had  sat  hours  with  Mrs.  Piozzi ;  who  read  the 
"  Vicar  of  Wakefield "  the  day  it  was  published ;  who 
had  heard  Haydn,  the  composer,  playing  at  a  concert, 
"  dressed  out  with  a  sword  "  ;  who  had  listened  to  Talley- 
rand's best  sayings  from  his  own  lips ;  who  had  seen 
John  Wesley  lying  dead  in  his  coffin,  "  an  old  man,  with 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.    393 

the  countenance  of  a  little  child " ;  who  had  been  with 
Beckford  at  Fonthill ;  who  had  seen  Porson  slink  back 
into  the  dining-room  after  the  company  had  left  it  and 
drain  what  was  left  in  the  wineglasses ;  who  had  crossed 
the  Apennines  with  Byron ;  who  had  seen  Beau  Nash  in 
the  height  of  his  career  dancing  minuets  at  Bath ;  who 
had  known  Lady  Hamilton  in  her  days  of  beauty,  and 
seen  her  often  with  Lord  Nelson  ;  who  was  in  Fox's  room 
when  that  great  man  lay  dying  ;  and  who  could  describe 
Pitt  from  personal  observation,  speaking  always  as  if  his 
mouth  was  "  full  of  worsted."  It  was  unreal  as  a  dream 
to  sit  there  in  St.  James  Place  and  hear  that  old  man 
talk  by  the  hour  of  what  one  had  been  reading  about  all 
one's  life.  One  thing,  I  must  confess,  somewhat  shocked 
me,  —  I  was  not  prepared  for  the  feeble  manner  in  which 
some  of  Rogers's  best  stories  were  received  by  the  gentle- 
men who  had  gathered  at  his  table  on  those  Tuesday 
mornings.  But  when  Procter  told  me  in  explanation  after- 
ward that  they  had  all  "  heard  the  same  anecdotes  every 
week,  perhaps,  for  half  a  century  from  the  same  lips,"  I 
no  longer  wondered  at  the  seeming  apathy  I  had  wit- 
nessed. It  was  a  great  treat  to  me,  however,  the  talk  I 
heard  at  Rogers's  hospitable  table,  and  my  three  visits 
there  cannot  be  erased  from  the  pleasantest  tablets  of 
memory.  There  is  only  one  regret  connected  with  them, 
but  that  loss  still  haunts  me.  On  one  of  those  memora- 
ble mornings  I  wTas  obliged  to  leave  earlier  than  the  rest 
of  the  company  on  account  of  an  engagement  out  of 
London,  and  Lady  Beecher  (formerly  Miss  O'Neil),  the 
great  actress  of  other  days,  came  in  and  read  an  hour  to 
the  old  poet  and  his  guests.  Procter  told  me  afterward 
that  among  other  things  she  read,  at  Rogers's  request,  the 
14th  chapter  of  Isaiah,  and  that  her  voice  and  manner 
seemed  like  inspiration. 

Seeing  and  talking  with  Rogers  was,  indeed,  like  living 
17* 


394  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

in  the  past :  and  one  may  imagine  how  weird  it  seemed 
to  a  raw  Yankee  youth,  thus  facing  the  man  who  might 
have  shaken  hands  with  Dr.  Johnson.  I  ventured  to  ask 
him  one  day  if  he  had  ever  seen  the  doctor.  "  No,"  said 
he;  "but  I  went  down  to  Bolt  Court  in  1782  with  the 
intention  of  making  Dr.  Johnson's  acquaintance.  I 
raised  the  knocker  tremblingly,  and  hearing  the  shuffling 
footsteps  as  of  an  old  man  in  the  entry,  my  heart  failed 
me,  and  I  put  down  the  knocker  softly  again,  and  crept 
back  into  Fleet  Street  without  seeing  the  vision  I  was  not 
bold  enough  to  encounter."  I  thought  it  was  something 
to  have  heard  the  footsteps  of  old  Sam  Johnson  stirring 
.about  in  that  ancient  entry,  and  for  my  own  part  I  was 
glad  to  look  upon  the  man  whose  ears  had  been  so 
strangely  privileged. 

Rogers  drew  about  him  all  the  musical  as  well  as  the 
literary  talent  of  London.  Grisi  and  Jenny  Lind  often 
came  of  a  morning  to  sing  their  best  arias  to  him  when 
he  became  too  old  to  attend  the  opera ;  and  both  Adelaide 
.and  Fanny  Kemble  brought  to  him  frequently  the  rich 
tributes  of  their  genius  in  art. 

It  was  my  good  fortune,  through  the  friendship  of 
Procter,  to  make  the  acquaintance,  at  Rogers's  table,  of 
Leslie,  the  artist,  —  a  warm  friend  of  the  old  poet, — 
and  to  be  taken  round  by  him  and  shown  all  the  prin- 
cipal private  galleries  in  London.  He  first  drew  my 
attention  to  the  pictures  by  Constable,  and  pointed  out 
their  quiet  beauty  to  my  uneducated  eye,  thus  instruct- 
ing me  to  hate  all  those  intemperate  landscapes  and  lurid 
compositions  which  abound  in  the  shambles  of  modern 
art.  In  the  company  of  Leslie  I  saw  my  first  Titians 
and  Vandycks,  and  felt,  as  Northcote  says,  on  my  good 
behavior  in  the  presence  of  portraits  so  lifelike  and  in- 
spiring. It  was  Leslie  who  inoculated  me  with  a  love  of 
Gainsborough,  before  whose  perfect  pictures  a  spectator 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     395 

involuntarily  raises  his  hat  and  stands  uncovered.  (And 
just  here  let  me  advise  every  art  lover  who  goes  to  Eng- 
land to  visit  the  little  Dulwich  Gallery,  only  a  few  miles 
from  London,  and  there  to  spend  an  hour  or  two  among 
the  exquisite  Gainsboroughs.  No  small  collection  in 
Europe  is  better  worth  a  visit,  and  the  place  itself  in 
summer-time  is  enchanting  with  greenery.) 

As  Eogers's  dining-room  abounded  in  only  first-rate 
works  of  art,  Leslie  used  to  take  round  the  guests  and 
make  us  admire  the  Eaphaels  and  Correggios.  Inserted 
in  the  walls  on  each  side  of  the  mantel-piece,  like  tiles, 
were  several  of  Turner's  original  oil  and  water-color  draw- 
ings, which  that  supreme  artist  had  designed  to  illustrate 
Rogers's  "Poems"  and  "Italy."  Long  before  Euskin  made 
those  sketches  world-famous  in  his  "  Modern  Painters,"  I 
have  heard  Leslie  point  out  their  beauties  with  as  fine  an 
enthusiasm.  He  used  to  say  that  they  purified  the  whole 
atmosphere  round  St.  James  Place ! 

Procter  had  a  genuine  regard  for  Count  d'Orsay,  and  he 
pointed  him  out  to  me  one  day  sitting  in  the  window  of 
his  club,  near  Gore  House,  looking  out  on  Piccadilly. 
The  count  seemed  a  little  past  his  prime,  but  was  still 
the  handsomest  man  in  London.  Procter  described  him 
as  a  brilliant  person,  of  special  ability,  and  by  no  means 
a  mere  dandy. 

I  first  saw  Procter's  friend,  John  Forster,  the  biogra- 
pher of  Goldsmith  and  Dickens,  in  his  pleasant  rooms, 
No.  58  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  He  was  then  in  his  prime, 
and  looked  brimful  of  energy.  His  age  might  have  been 
forty,  or  a  trifle  onward  from  that  mile-stone,  and  his 
whole  manner  announced  a  determination  to  assert  that 
nobody  need  prompt  him.  His  voice  rang  loud  and  clear, 
up  stairs  and  down,  everywhere  throughout  his  premises. 
When  he  walked  over  the  uncarpeted  floor,  you  heard  him 
walk,  and  he  meant  you  should.    When  he  spoke,  nobody 


396  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

required  an  ear-trumpet ;  the  deaf  never  lost  a  syllable  of 
his  manly  utterances.  Procter  and  he  were  in  the  same 
Commission,  and  were  on  excellent  terms,  the  younger 
officer  always  regarding  the  elder  with  a  kind  of  leonine 
deference. 

It  was  to  John  Forster  these  charming  lines  were  ad- 
dressed by  Barry  Cornwall,  when  the  poet  sent  his  old 
friend  a  present  of  Shakespeare's  Works.  A  more  exqui- 
site compliment  was  never  conveyed  in  verse  so  modest 
and  so  perfect  in  simple  grace  :  — 

"  I  do  not  know  a  man  who  better  reads 
Or  weighs  the  great  thoughts  of  the  book  I  send,  — 
Better  than  he  whom  1  have  called  my  friend 
For  twenty  years  and  upwards.     He  who  feeds 
Upon  Shakesperian  pastures  never  needs 
The  humbler  food  which  springs  from  plains  below  ; 
Yet  may  he  love  the  little  flowers  that  blow, 
And  him  excuse  who  for  their  beauty  pleads. 

"Take  then  my  Shakespeare  to  some  sylvan  nook  ; 
And  pray  thee,  in  the  name  of  Days  of  old, 
Good-will  and  friendship,  never  bought  or  sold, 
Give  me  assurance  thou  wilt  always  look 
With  kindness  still  on  Spirits  of  humbler  mould  ; 
Kept  firm  by  resting  on  that  wondrous  book, 
Wherein  the  Dream  of  Life  is  all  unrolled." 

Forster's  library  was  filled  with  treasures,  and  he 
brought  to  the  dinner-table,  the  day  I  was  first  with 
him,  such  rare  and  costly  manuscripts  and  annotated 
volumes  to  show  us,  that  one's  appetite  for  "made  dishes" 
was  quite  taken  away.  The  excellent  lady  whom  he 
afterward  married  was  one  of  the  guests,  and  among  the 
gentlemen  present  I  remember  the  brilliant  author  of 
"The  Bachelor  of  the  Albany,"  a  book  that  was  then  the 
Novel  sensation  in  London.  Forster  flew  from  one  topic 
to  another  with  admirable  skill,  and  entertained  us  with 
anecdotes  of  Wellington  and  Bogers,  gilding  the  time  with 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     397 

capital  imitations  of  his  celebrated  contemporaries  in  lit- 
erature and  on  the  stage.  A  touch  about  Edmund  Kean 
made  us  all  start  from  our  chairs  and  demand  a  mimetic 
repetition.  Forster  must  have  been  an  excellent  private 
actor,  for  he  had  power  and  skill  quite  exceptional  in  that 
way.  His  force  carried  him  along  wherever  he  chose  to 
go,  and  when  he  played  "  Kitely,"  his  ability  must  have 
been  strikingly  apparent.  After  his  marriage,  and  when 
he  removed  from  Lincoln's  Inn  to  his  fine  residence  at 
"  Palace-Gate  House,"  he  gave  frequent  readings,  evincing 
remarkable  natural  and  acquired  talents.  For  Dickens 
he  had  a  love  amounting  to  jealousy.  He  never  quite 
relished  anybody  else  whom  the  great  novelist  had  a 
fondness  for,  and  I  have  heard  droll  stories  touching  this 
weakness.  For  Professor  Felton  he  had  unbounded  re- 
gard, which  had  grown  up  by  correspondence  and  through 
report  from  Dickens.  He  had  never  met  Felton,  and 
when  the  professor  arrived  in  London,  Dickens,  with  his 
love  of  fun,  arranged  a  bit  of  cajolery,  which  was  never 
quite  forgotten,  though  wholly  forgiven.  Knowing  how 
highly  Forster  esteemed  Felton,  through  his  writings  and 
his  letters,  Dickens  resolved  to  take  Felton  at  once  to 
Forster's  house  and  introduce  him  as  Professor  Stotve,  the 
port  of  both  these  gentlemen  being  pretty  nearly  equal. 
The  Stoweswere  then  in  England  on  their  triumphant 
tour,  and  this  made  the  attempt  at  deception  an  easy  one. 
So,  Felton  being  in  the  secret,  he  and  Dickens  proceed  to 
Forster's  house  and  are  shown  in.  Down  comes  Forster 
into  the  library,  and  is  presented  forthwith  to  "  Pro- 
fessor Stotve."  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  is  at  once  referred 
to,  and  the  talk  goes  on  in  that  direction  for  some  time. 
At  last  both  Dickens  and  Felton  fell  into  such  a  parox- 
ysm of  laughter  at  Forster's  dogged  determination  to  be 
complimentary  to  the  world-renowned  novel,  that  they 
could  no  longer  hold  out ;  and  Forster,  becoming  almost 


398  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

insane  with  wonder  at  the  hilarious  conduct  of  his  two 
visitors,  Dickens  revealed  their  wickedness,  and  a  right 
jolly  day  the  happy  trio  made  of  it. 

Talfourd  informs  us  that  Forster  had  become  to  Charles 
Lamb  as  one  of  his  oldest  companions,  and  that  Mary 
also  cherished  a  strong  regard  for  him.  It  is  surely  a 
proof  of  his  admirable  qualities  that  the  love  of  so  many 
of  England's  best  and  greatest  was  secured  to  him  by  so 
lasting  a  tenure.  To  have  the  friendship  of  Landor, 
Dickens,  and  Procter  through  long  years ;  to  have  Carlyle 
for  a  constant  votary,  and  to  be  mourned  by  him  with  an 
abiding  sorrow,  —  these  are  no  slight  tributes  to  purity 
of  purpose. 

Forster  had  that  genuine  sympathy  with  men  of  letters 
which  entitled  him  to  be  their  biographer,  and  all  his 
works  in  that  department  have  a  special  charm,  habitu- 
ally gained  only  by  a  subtle  and  earnest  intellect. 

It  is  a  singular  coincidence  that  the  writers  of  two  of 
the  most  brilliant  records  of  travel  of  their  time  should 
have  been  law  students  in  Barry  Cornwall's  office.  King- 
lake,  the  author  of  "  Eothen,"  and  Warburton,  the  author 
of  "  The  Crescent  and  the  Cross,"  were  at  one  period  both 
engaged  as  pupils  in  their  profession  under  the  guidance 
of  Mr.  Procter.  He  frequently  spoke  with  pride  of  his 
two  law  students,  and  when  Warburton  perished  at  sea, 
his  grief  for  his  brilliant  friend  was  deep  and  abiding. 
Kinglake's  later  literary  fame  was  always  a  pleasure  to 
the  historian's  old  master,  and  no  one  in  England  loved 
better  to  point  out  the  fine  passages  in  the  "  History  of 
the  Invasion  of  the  Crimea"  than  the  old  poet  in  Wey- 
mouth Street. 

"  Blackwood  "  and  the  "  Quarterly  Pteview  "  railed  at 
Procter  and  his  author  friends  for  a  long  period  ;  but  how 
true  is  the  saying  of  Macaulay,  "  that  the  place  of  books 
in  the  public  estimation  is  fixed,  not  by  what  is  written 


"BARRY   CORNWALL"   AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     399 

about  them,  but  by  what  is  written  in  them  ! "  No  man 
was  more  decried  in  his  day  than  Procter's  friend,  Wil- 
liam Hazlitt.  The  poet  had  for  the  critic  a  genuine  ad- 
miration ;  and  I  have  heard  him  dilate  with  a  kind  of 
rapture  over  the  critic's  fine  sayings,  quoting  abundant 
passages  from  the  essays.  Procter  would  never  hear  any 
disparagement  of  his  friend's  ability  and  keenness.  I  re- 
call his  earnest  but  restrained  indignation  one  day,  when 
some  person  compared  Hazlitt  with  a  diffusive  mod- 
ern writer  of  notes  on  the  theatre,  and  I  remember  with 
what  contempt,  in  his  sweet  forgivable  way,  the  old  man 
spoke  of  much  that  passes  nowadays  for  criticism.  He 
said  Hazlitt  was  exactly  the  opposite  of  Lord  Chesterfield, 
who  advised  his  son,  if  he  could  not  get  at  a  thing  in  a 
straight  line,  to  try  the  serpentine  one.  There  were  no 
crooked  pathways  in  Hazlitt's  intellect.  His  style  is  brill- 
iant, but  never  cloyed  with  ornamentation.  Hazlitt's 
paper  on  Gifford  was  thought  by  Procter  to  be  as  pungent 
a  bit  of  writing  as  had  appeared  in  his  day,  and  he  quoted 
this  paragraph  as  a  sample  of  its  biting  justice :  "  Mr. 
Gifford  is  admirably  qualified  for  the  situation  he  has 
held  for  many  years  as  editor  of  the  '  Quarterly '  by  a 
happy  combination  of  defects,  natural  and  acquired."  In 
one  of  his  letters  to  me  Procter  writes,  "  I  despair  of  the 
age  that  has  forgotten  to  read  Hazlitt." 

Procter  was  a  delightful  prose  writer,  as  well  as  a 
charming  poet.  Having  met  in  old  magazines  and  an- 
nuals several  of  his  essays  and  stories,  and  admiring  their 
style  and  spirit,  I  induced  him,  after  much  persuasion,  to 
collect  and  publish  in  America  his  prose  works.  The 
result  was  a  couple  of  volumes,  which  were  brought  out 
in  Boston  in  1853.  In  them  there  are  perhaps  no 
"  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity,"  but  they  abound 
in  fancies  which  the  reader  will  recognize  as  agile 

"  Daughters  of  the  earth  and  sun." 


4oo  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 

In  them  there  is  nothing  loud  or  painful,  and  whoever 
really  loves  "  a  good  book,"  and  knows  it  to  be  such  on 
trial,  will  find  Barry  Cornwall's  "Essays  and  Tales  in 
Prose  "  most  delectable  reading.  "  Imparadised,"  as  Mil- 
ton hath  the  word,  on  a  summer  hillside,  or  tented  by  the 
cool  salt  wave,  no  better  afternoon  literature  can  be  se- 
lected. One  will  never  meet  with  distorted  metaphor  or 
tawdry  rhetoric  in  Barry's  thoughtful  pages,  but  will  find 
a  calm  philosophy  and  a  beautiful  faith,  very  precious 
and  profitable  in  these  days  of  doubt  and  insecurity  of 
intellect.  There  is  a  respite  and  a  sympathy  in  this  fine 
spirit,  and  so  I  commend  him  heartily  in  times  so  full  of 
turmoil  and  suspicion  as  these.  One  of  the  stories  in  the 
first  volume  of  these  prose  writings,  called  "The  Man- 
Hunter,"  is  quite  equal  in  power  to  any  of  the  graphic 
pieces  of  a  similar  character  ever  written  by  De  Quincey 
or  Dickens,  but  the  tone  in  these  books  is  commonly 
more  tender  and  inclining  to  melancholy.  What,  for  in- 
stance, could  b&  more  heart-moving  than  these  passages 
of  his  on  the  death  of  little,  children  ? 

"  I  scarcely  know  how  it  is,  but  the  deaths  of  children  seem  to 
me  always  less  premature  than  those  of  elder  persons.  Not  that 
they  are  in  fact  so  ;  but  it  is  because  they  themselves  have  little  or 
no  relation  to  time  or  maturity.  Life  seems  a  race  which  they  have 
yet  to  run  entirely.  They  have  made  no  progress  toward  the  goal. 
They  are  born  —  nothing  further.  But  it  seems  hard,  when  a  man 
has  toiled  high  up  the  steep  hill  of  knowledge,  that  he  should  be 
cast  like  Sisyphus,  downward  in  a  moment ;  that  he  who  has  worn 
the  day  and  wasted  the  night  in  gathering  the  gold  of  science  should 
be,  with  all  his  wealth  of  learning,  all  his  accumulations,  made 
bankrupt  at  once.  What  becomes  of  all  the  riches  of  the  soul,  the 
piles  and  pyramids  of  precious  thoughts  which  men  heap  together  1 
Where  are  Shakespeare's  imagination,  Bacon's  learning,  Galileo's 
dream  1  Where  is  the  sweet  fancy  of  Sidney,  the  airy  spirit  of 
Fletcher,  and  Milton's  thought  severe  1  Methinks  such  things  should 
not  die  and  dissipate,  when  a  hair  can  live  for  centuries,  and  a  brick 
of  Egypt  will  last  three  thousand  years  !  I  am  content  to  believe 
that  the  mind  of  man  survives  (somewhere  or  other)  his  clay. 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.    401 

"  I  was  once  present  at  the  death  of  a  little  child.  I  will  not  pain 
the  reader  by  portraying  its  agonies  ;  but  when  its  breath  was  gone, 
its  life,  (nothing  more  than  a  cloud  of  smoke !)  and  it  lay  like  a  waxen 
image  before  me,  I  turned  my  eyes  to  its  moaning  mother,  and  sighed 
out  my  few  words  of  comfort.  But  I  am  a  beggar  in  grief.  I  can 
feel  and  sigh  and  look  kindly,  I  think  ;  but  I  have  nothing  to  give. 
My  tongue  deserts  me.  I  know  the  inutility  of  too  soon  comforting. 
I  know  that  I  should  weep  were  I  the  loser,  and  I  let  the  tears  have 
their  way.  Sometimes  a  word  or  two  I  can  muster  :  a  '  Sigh  no 
more  ! '  and  '  Dear  lady,  do  not  grieve  ! '  but  further  I  am  mute  and 
useless." 

I  have  many  letters  and  kind  little  notes  which  Procter 
used  to  write  me  during  the  years  I  knew  him  best.  His 
tricksy  fancies  peeped  out  in  his  correspondence,  and  sev- 
eral of  his  old  friends  in  England  thought  no  literary  man 
of  his  time  had  a  better  epistolary  style.  His  neat  ele- 
gant chirography  on  the  back  of  a  letter  was  always  a 
delightful  foretaste  of  something  good  inside,  and  I  never 
received  one  of  his  welcome  missives  that  did  not  contain, 
no  matter  how  brief  it  happened  to  be,  welcome  passages 
of  wit  or  affectionate  interest. 

In  one  of  his  early  letters  to  me  he  says  :  — 

"  There  is  no  one  rising  hereabouts  in  literature.  I  suppose  our 
national  genius  is  taking  a  mechanical  turn.  And,  in  truth,  it  is 
much  better  to  make  a  good  steam-engine  than  to  manufacture  a  bad 
poem.  '  Building  the  lofty  rhyme '  is  a  good  thing,  but  our  present 
buildings  are  of  a  low  order,  and  seldom  reach  the  Attic.  This 
piece  of  wit  will  scarcely  throw  you  into  a  fit,  I  imagine,  your  risible 
muscles  being  doubtless  kept  in  good  order." 

In  another  he  writes :  — 

"  I  see  you  have  some  capital  names  in  the  '  Atlantic  Monthly.' 
If  they  will  only  put  forth  their  strength,  there  is  no  doubt  as  to 
the  result,  but  the  misfortune  is  that  persons  who  write  anony- 
mously don't  put  forth  their  strength,  in  general.  I  was  a  magazine 
writer  for  no  less  than  a  dozen  years,  and  I  felt  that  no  personal 
credit  or  responsibility  attached  to  my  literary  trifling,  and  although 
I  sometimes  did  pretty  well  (for  me),  yet  I  never  did  my  best." 

z 


402  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

As  I  read  over  again  the  portfolio  of  his  letters  to  me, 
bearing  date  from  1848  to  1866,  I  find  many  passages  of 
interest,  but  most  of  them  are  too  personal  for  type.  A 
few  extracts,  however,  I  cannot  resist  copying.  Some  of 
his  epistles  are  enriched  with  a  song  or  a  sonnet,  then 
just  written,  and  there  are  also  frequent  references  in 
them  to  American  editions  of  his  poetical  and  prose  works, 
which  he  collected  at  the  request  of  his  Boston  publishers. 

In  June,  1851,  he  writes  :  — 

"  I  have  encountered  a  good  many  of  your  countrymen  here  lately, 
but  have  been  introduced  only  to  a  few.  I  found  Mr.  Norton,  who 
has  returned  to  you,  and  Mr.  D  wight,  who  is  still  here,  I  believe, 
very  intelligent  and  agreeable. 

"  If  all  Americans  were  like  them  and  yourself,  and  if  all  English- 
men were  like  Kenyonand  (so  far  as  regards  a  desire  to  judge  fairly) 
myself,  I  think  there  would  be  little  or  no  quarrelling  between  our 
small  island  and  your  great  continent. 

"  Our  glass  palace  is  a  perpetual  theme  for  small-talk.  It  usurps 
the  place  of  the  weather,  which  is  turned  adrift,  or  laid  up  in  ordi- 
nary for  future  use.  Nevertheless  it  (I  mean  the  palace)  is  a  re- 
markable achievement,  after  all  ;  and  I  speak  sincerely  when  I  say, 
'  All  honor  and  glory  to  Paxton  ! '  If  the  strings  of  my  poor  little 
lyre  were  not  rusty  and  overworn,  I  think  I  should  try  to  sing  some 
of  my  nonsense  verses  before  his  image,  and  add  to  the  idolatry  al- 
ready existing. 

"  If  you  have  hotter  weather  in  America  than  that  which  is  at 
present  burning  and  blistering  us  here,  you  are  entitled  to  pity.  If 
it  continue  much  longer,  I  shall  be  held  in  solution  for  the  remain- 
der of  my  days,  and  shall  be  remarkable  as  '  Oxygen,  the  poet '  (re- 
duced to  his  natural  weakness  and  simplicity  by  the  hot  summer  of 
1851),  instead  of  Your  very  sincere  and  obliged 

"  B.  W.  Procter." 

Here  is  a  brief  reference  to  Judd's  remarkable  novel, 
forming  part  of  a  note  written  to  me  in  1852  :  — 

"Thanks  for  'Margaret'  (the  book,  not  the  woman),  that  you 
have  sent  me.  When  will  you  want  it  back  1  and  who  is  the  au- 
thor?    There  is  a  great  deal  of  clever  writing  in  it,  —  great  observa- 


"BARRY   CORNWALL"   AND  HIS  FRIENDS.    403 

tion  of  nature,  and  also  of  character  among  a  certain  class  of  persons. 
But  it  is  almost  too  minute,  and  for  me  decidedly  too  theological. 
You  see  what  irreligious  people  we  are  here.  I  shall  come  over  to 
one  of  your  camp-meetings  and  try  to  be  converted.  What  will 
they  administer  in  such  a  case  I  brimstone  or  brandy  ?  I  shall  try 
the  latter  first." 

Here  is  a  letter  bearing  date  "  Thursday  night,  Novem- 
ber 25,  1852,"  in  which  he  refers  to  his  own  writings,  and 
copies  a  charming  song :  — 

"  Your  letter,  announcing  the  arrival  of  the  little  preface,  reached 
me  last  night.  I  shall  look  out  for  the  book  in  about  three  weeks 
hence,  as  you  tell  me  that  they  are  all  printed.  You  Americans 
are  a  rapid  race.  When  I  thought  you  were  in  Scotland,  lo,  you 
had  touched  the  soil  of  Boston  ;  and  when  I  thought  you  were  un- 
packing my  poor  MS.,  tumbling  it  out  of  your  great  trunk,  behold  ! 
it  is  arranged — it  is  in  the  printer's  hands — it  is  jwinted  —  pub- 
lished—  it  is  —  ah  !  would  I  could  add,  SOLD  !  That,  after  all,  is 
the  grand  triumph  in  Boston  as  well  as  London. 

"  Well,  since  it  is  not  sold  yet,  let  us  be  generous  and  give  a  few 
copies  away.  Indeed,  such  is  my  weakness,  that  I  would  sometimes 
rather  give  than  sell.  In  the  present  instance  you  will  do  me  the 
kindness  to  send  a  copy  each  to  Mr.  Charles  Sumner,  Mr.  Hillard, 
Mr.  Norton  :  but  no  —  my  wife  requests  to  be  the  donor  to  Mr. 
Norton,  so  you  must,  if  you  please,  write  his  name  in  the  first  leaf 
and  state  that  it  comes  from  '  Airs.  Procter.'  I  liked  him  very  much 
when  I  met  him  in  London,  and  I  should  wish  him  to  be  reminded 
of  his  English  acquaintance. 

"  I  am  writing  to  you  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night,  after  a  long  and 
busy  day,  and  I  write  now  rather  than  wait  for  a  little  inspiration, 
because  the  mail,  I  believe,  starts  to-morrow.  The  unwilling  Mi- 
nerva is  at  my  elbow,  and  I  feel  that  every  sentence  I  write,  were 
it  pounded  ten  times  in  a  mortar,  would  come  out  again  unleavened 
and  heavy.  Braying  some  people  in  a  mortar,  you  know,  is  but 
a  weary  and  unprofitable  process. 

"  You  speak  of  London  as  a  delightful  place.'  I  don't  know  how 
it  may  be  in  the  white-bait  season,  but  at  present  it  is  foggy,  rainy, 
cold,  dull.  Half  of  us  are  unwell  and  the  other  half  dissatisfied. 
Some  are  apprehensive  of  an  invasion,  —  not  an  impossible  event  ; 
some  writing  odes  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington  ;  and  I  am  putting 
my  good  friend  to  sleep  with  the  flattest  prose  that  ever  dropped 


404  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 

from  an  English  pen.  I  wish  that  it  were  better  ;  I  wish  that  it 
were  even  worse  ;  but  it  is  the  most  undeniable  twaddle.  I  must 
go  to  bed,  and  invoke  the  Muses  in  the  morning.  At  present,  I  can- 
not touch  one  of  their  petticoats. 

"A   SLEEPY   SONG. 

"  Sing  !  sing  me  to  sleep  ! 

With  gentle  words,  in  some  sweet  slumberous  measure, 
Such  as  lone  poet  on  some  shady  steep 
Sings  to  the  silence  in  his  noonday  leisure. 

"Sing  !  as  the  river  sings, 

When  gently  it  flows  between  soft  banks  of  flowers, 
And  the  bee  murmurs,  and  the  cuckoo  brings 
His  faint  May  music,  'tween  the  golden  showers. 

"  Sing !  0  divinest  tone  ! 

I  sink  beneath  some  wizard's  charming  wand  ; 
I  yield,  I  move,  by  soothing  breezes  blown, 
O'er  twilight  shores,  into  the  Dreaming  Land  ! 

"  I  read  the  above  to  you  when  you  were  in  London.  It  will  ap- 
pear in  an  Annual  edited  by  Miss  Power  (Lady  Blessington's  niece). 

"  Friday  Morning. 

"  The  wind  blowing  down  the  chimney  ;  the  rain  sprinkling  my 
windows.  The  English  Apollo  hides  his  head  —  you  can  scarcely 
see  him  on  the  '  misty  mountain-tops '  (those  brick  ones  which  you 
remember  in  Portland  Place). 

"  My  friend  Thackeray  is  gone  to  America,  and  I  hope  is,  by  this 
time,  in  the  United  States.  He  goes  to  New  York,  and  afterward 
I  suppose  (but  I  don't  know)  to  Boston  and  Philadelphia.  Have  you 
seen  Esmond  ?  There  are  parts  of  it  charmingly  written.  His  pa- 
thos is  to  me  very  touching.  I  believe  that  the  best  mode  of  making 
one's  way  to  a  person's  head  is  —  through  his  heart. 

"  I  hope  that  your  literary  men  will  like  some  of  my  little  prose 
matters.  I  know  that  they  will  try  to  like  them  ;  but  the  papers 
have  been  written  so  long,  and  all,  or  almost  all,  written  so  hastily, 
that  I  have  my  misgivings.     However,  they  must  take  their  chance. 

"  Had  I  leisure  to  complete  something  that  I  began  two  or  three 
years  ago,  and  in  which  I  have  written  a  chapter  or  two,  I  should 
reckon  more  surely  on  success  ;  but  I  shall  probably  never  finish 
the  thing,  although  I  contemplated  only  one  volume. 

"  (If  you  cannot  read  this  letter  apply  to  the  printer's  devil.  — 
Hibernicus.) 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     405 

"  Farewell.  All  good  be  with  you.  My  wife  desires  to  be  kindly 
remembered  by  you. 

"  Always  yours,  very  sincerely, 

"  B.  W.  Procter." 

"  P.  S.  —  Can  you  contrive  to  send  Mr.  Willis  a  copy  of  the  prose 
book  ?     If  so,  pray  do." 

In  February,  1853,  he  writes  :  — 

"  Those  famous  volumes,  the  advent  of  which  was  some  time  since 
announced  by  the  great  transatlantic  trumpet,  have  duly  arrived. 
My  wife  is  properly  grateful  for  her  copy,  which,  indeed,  impresses 
both  of  us  with  respect  for  the  American  skill  in  binding.  Neither 
too  gay  to  be  gaudy,  nor  too  grave,  so  as  to  affect  the  theological,  it 
hits  that  happy  medium  which  agrees  with  the  tastes  of  most  people 
and  disgusts  none.  We  should  flatter  ourselves  that  it  is  intended 
to  represent  the  matter  within,  but  that  we  are  afraid  of  incurring 
the  sin  of  vanity,  and  the  indiscretion  of  taking  appearances  too 
much  upon  trust.  We  suspend  our  conjectures  on  this  very  inter- 
esting subject.     The  whole  getting  up  of  the  book  is  excellent. 

"  For  the  little  scraps  of  (critical)  sugar  enclosed  in  your  letter, 
due  thanks.  These  will  sweeten  our  imagination  for  some  time  to 
come. 

"  I  have  been  obliged  to  give  all  the  copies  you  sent  me  away.  I 
dare  say  you  will  not  grudge  me  four  or  five  copies  more,  to  be  sent 
at  your  convenience,  of  course.  Let  me  hear  from  you  at  the  same 
time.  You  can  give  me  one  of  those  frequent  quarters  of  an  hour 
which  I  know  you  now  devote  to  a  meditation  on  '  things  in  general.' 

"  I  am  glad  that  you  like  Thackeray.  He  is  well  worth  your 
liking  I  trust  to  his  making  both  friends  and  money  in  America, 
and  to  his  keeping  both.  I  am  not  so  sure  of  the  money,  however, 
for  he  has  a  liberal  hand.  I  should  have  liked  to  have  heen  at  one 
of  the  dinners  you  speak  of.  When  shall  you  begin  that  bridge  ? 
You  seem  to  be  a  long  time  about  it.  It  will,  I  dare  say,  be  a  bridge 
of  boats,  after  all 

"  I  was  reading  (rather  re-reading)  the  other  evening  the  introduc- 
tory chapter  to  the  '  Scarlet  Letter.'  It  is  admirably  written.  Not 
having  any  great  sympathy  with  a  custom-house,  —  nor,  indeed, 
with  Salem,  except  that  it  seems  to  be  Hawthorne's  birthplace,  —  all 
my  attention  was  concentrated  on  the  style,  which  seems  to  me 
excellent. 


406  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

"  The  most  striking  book  which  has  been  recently  published  here 
is  '  Villette,'  by  the  authoress  of  '  Jane  Eyre,'  who,  as  you  know,  is 
a  Miss  Bronte.  The  book  does  not  give  one  the  most  pleasing  no- 
tion of  the  authoress,  perhaps,  but  it  is  very  clever,  graphic,  vigor- 
ous. It  is  '  man's  meat,'  and  not  the  whipped  syllabub,  which  is  all 
froth,  without  any  jam  at  the  bottom.  The  scene  of  the  drama  is 
Brussels. 

"  I  was  sorry  to  hear  of  poor  Willis.  Our  critics  here  were  too 
severe  upon  him 

"  The  Frost  King  (vulg.  Jack  Frost)  has  come  down  upon  us  with 
all  his  might.  Banished  from  the  pleasant  shores  of  Boston,  he  has 
come  with  his  cold  scythe  and  ice  pincers  to  our  undefended  little 
island,  and  is  tyrannizing  in  every  corner  and  over  every  part  of  every 
person.  Nothing  is  too  great  for  him,  nothing  too  mean.  He  con- 
descends even  to  lay  hold  of  the  nose  (an  offence  for  which  any  one 
below  the  dignity  of  a  King  —  or  a  President  —  would  be  kicked.) 
As  for  me  I  have  taken  refuge  in 

"A   SONG   WITH   A   MORAL. 

"  When  the  winter  bloweth  loud, 
And  the  earth  is  in  a  shroud, 
Frozen  rain  or  sleety  snow 
Dimming  every  dream  below,  — 

There  is  e'er  a  spot  of  green 

Whence  the  heavens  may  be  seen. 

"  When  our  purse  is  shrinking  fast, 
And  our  friend  is  lost,  (the  last !) 
And  the  world  doth  pour  its  pain, 
Sharper  than  the  frozen  rain,  — 
There  is  still  a  spot  of  green 
Whence  the  heavens  may  be  seen. 

"  Let  us  never  meet  despair 
While  the,  little  spot  is  there ; 
Winter  brighteneth  into  May, 
And  sullen  night  to  sunny  day,  — 

Seek  we  then  the  spot  of  green 

Whence  the  heavens  may  be  seen. 


« 


I  have  left  myself  little  space  for  more  small-talk.  I  must, 
therefore,  conclude  with  wishing  that  your  English  dreams  may  con- 
tinue bright,  and  that  when  they  begin  to  fade  you  will  come  and 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"   AND  JUS  FRIENDS.     407 

relume  at  one  of  the  white-bait  dinners  of  which  you  used  to  talk  in 
such  terms  of  rapture. 

"Have  I  space  to  say  that  I  am  very  truly  yours  ? 

"  B.  W.  Procter. 

A  few  months  later,  in  the  same  year  (1853),  he  sits  by 
his  open  window  in  London,  on  a  morning  of  spring,  and 
sends  off  the  following  pleasant  words  :  — 

"  You  also  must  now  be  in  the  first  burst  and  sunshine  of  spring. 
Your  spear-grass  is  showing  its  points,  your  succulent  grass  its  rich- 
ness, even  your  little  plant  [  1  ]  (so  useful  for  certain  invalids)  is 
seen  here  and  there  ;  primroses  are  peeping  out  in  your  neighbor- 
hood, and  you  are  looking  for  cowslips  to  come.  I  say  nothing  of 
your  hawthorns  (from  the  common  May  to  the  classic  Nathaniel), 
except  that  I  trust  they  are  thriving,  and  like  to  put  forth  a  world 
of  blossoms  soon. 

'  With  all  this  wealth,  present  and  future, 
The  yellow  cowslip  and  the  pale  primrose,' 

you  will  doubtless  feel  disposed  to  scatter  your  small  coins  abroad 
on  the  poor,  and,  among  other  things,  to  forward  to  your  humble 

correspondent  those  copies  of  B C 's  prose  works  which  you 

promised  I  know  not  how  long  ago.  ' He  who  gives  speedily'  they 
say,  '  gives  twice.'     I  quote,  as  you  see,  from  the  Latins. 

"  I  have  just  got  the  two  additional  volumes  of  De  Quincey,  for 
which  —  thanks  !  I  have  not  seen  Mr.  Parker,  who  brought  them, 
and  who  left  his  card  here  yesterday,  but  I  have  asked  if  he  will 
come  and  breakfast  with  me  on  Sunday,  —  my  only  certain  leisure 
day.  Your  De  Quincey  is  a  man  of  a  good  deal  of  reading,  and  has 
thought  on  divers  and  sundry  matters  ;  but  he  is  evidently  so  thor- 
oughly well  pleased  with  the  Sieur  '  Thomas  De  Quincey '  that  his  self- 
sufficiency  spoils  even  his  best  works.  Then  some  of  his  facts  are,  I 
bear,  quasi  facts  only,  not  unfrequently.  He  has  his  moments  when 
he  sleeps,  and  becomes  oblivious  of  all  but  the  aforesaid  '  Thomas,' 
who  pervades  both  his  sleeping  and  waking  visions.  I,  like  all 
authors,  am  glad  to  have  a  little  praise  now  and  then  (it  is  my  hy- 
dromel),  but  it  must  be  dispensed  by  others.  I  do  not  think  it 
decent  to  manufacture  the  sweet  liquor  myself,  and  I  hate  a  cox- 
comb, whether  in  dress  or  print. 

"  We  have  little  or  no  literary  news  here.     Our  poets  are  all  going 


408  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

to  the  poorhouse  (except  Tennyson),  and  our  prose  writers  are  piling 
up  their  works  for  the  next  5th  of  November,  when  there  will  be  a 
great  bonfire.  It  is  deuced  lucky  that  my  immortal  (ah  !  I  am  De 
Quinceying)  —  I  mean  my  humble  —  performances  were  printed  in 
America,  so  that  they  will  escape.  By  the  by,  are  they  on  foolscap  ] 
for  I  forgot  to  caution  you  on  that  head. 

"I  have  been  spending  a  week  at  Liverpool,  where  I  rejoiced  to 
hear  that  Hawthorne's  appointment  was  settled,  and  that  it  was  a 
valuable  post ;  but  I  hear  that  it  lasts  for  three  years  only.  This  is 
melancholy.  I  hope,  however,  that  he  will  '  realize '  (as  you  trans- 
atlantics say)  as  much  as  he  can  during  his  consulate,  and  that  your 
next  President  will  have  the  good  taste  and  the  good  sense  to  renew 
his  lease  for  three  years  more. 

"  I  have  not  seen  Mrs.  Stowe.  I  shall  probably  meet  her  some- 
where or  other  when  she  comes  to  London. 

"  I  dare  not  ask  after  Mr.  Longfellow.  He  was  kind  enough  to 
write  me  a  very  agreeable  letter  some  time  ago,  which  I  ought  to 
have  answered.  I  dare  say  he  has  forgotten  it,  but  my  conscience  is 
a  serpent  that  gives  me  a  bite  or  a  sting  every  now  and  then  when 
I  think  of  him.  The  first  time  I  am  in  fit  condition  (I  mean  in 
point  of  brightness)  to  reply  to  so  famous  a  correspondent,  I  shall 
try  what  an  English  pen  and  ink  will  enable  me  to  say.  In  the 
mean  time,  God  be  thanked  for  all  things  ! 

"  My  wife  heard  from  Thackeray  about  ten  days  ago.  He  speaks 
gratefully  of  the  kindness  that  he  has  met  with  in  America.  Among 
other  things,  it  appears  that  he  has  seen  something  of  your  slaves, 
whom  he  represents  as  leading  a  very  easy  life,  and  as  being  fat,  cheer- 
ful, and  happy.  Nevertheless,  /  (for  one)  would  rather  be  a  free 
man,  —  such  is  the  singularity  of  my  opinions.  If  my  prosings 
should  ever  in  the  course  of  the  next  twenty  years  require  to  be  re- 
printed, gray  take  note  of  the  above  opinion. 

"  And  now  I  have  no  more  paper ;  I  have  scarcely  room  left  to 
say  that  I  hope  you  are  well,  and  to  remind  you  that  for  your  ten 
lines  of  writing  I  have  sent  you  back  a  hundred.  Give  my  best 
compliments  to  all  whom  I  know,  personally  or  otherwise.  God  be 
with  you ! 

"  Yours,  very  sincerely, 

"B.  W.Procter." 

Procter  always  seemed  to  be  astounded  at  the  travelling 
spirit  of  Americans,  and  in  his  letters  he  makes  frequent 
reference  to  our  "  national  propensity,"  as  he  calls  it. 


"BARRY   CORNWALL"   AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     409 

"  Half  an  hour  ago,"  he  writes  in  July,  1853,  "  we  had  three  of 
your  countrymen  here  to  lunch,  —  countrymen  I  mean,  Hiberni- 
cally,  for  two  of  them  wore  petticoats.  They  are  all  going  to  Swit- 
zerland, France,  Italy,  Egypt,  and  Syria.  What  an  adventurous  race 
you  are,  you  Americans  !  Here  the  women  go  merely  '  from  the 
blue  bed  to  the  brown,'  and  think  that  they  have  travelled  and  seen 
the  world.  I  myself  should  not  care  much  to  be  confined  to  a  circle 
reaching  six  or  seven  miles  round  London.  There  are  the  fresh 
winds  and  wild  thyme  on  Hampstead  Heath,  and  from  Rieh- 
mond  you  may  survey  the  Naiades.  Highgate,  where  Coleridge 
lived,  Enfield,  where  Charles  Lamb  dwelt,  are  not  far  off.  Turning 
eastward,  there  is  the  river  Lea,  in  which  Izaak  Walton  fished  ; 
and  farther  on  —  ha  !  what  do  I  see  ?  What  are  those  little  fish 
frisking  in  the  batter  (the  great  Naval  Hospital  close  by),  which 
fixed  the  affections  of  the  enamored  American  while  he  resided  in 
London,  and  have  been  floating  in  his  dreams  ever  since  I  They 
are  said  by  the  naturalists  to  be  of  the  species  Blandammtum  album, 
and  are  by  vulgar  aldermen  spoken  carelessly  of  as  white-bait. 

"  London  is  full  of  carriages,  full  of  strangers,  full  of  parties  feast- 
ing on  strawberries  and  ices  and  other  things  intended  to  allay  the 
heat  of  summer  ;  but  the  Summer  herself  (fickle  virgin)  keeps  back, 
or  has  been  stopped  somewhere  or  other,  —  perhaps  at  the  Liverpool 
custom-house,  where  the  very  brains  of  men  (their  books)  are  held 
in  durance,  as  I  know  to  my  cost. 

"  Thackeray  is  about  to  publish  a  new  work  in  numbers,  —  a 
serial,  as  the  newspapers  call  it.  Thomas  Carlyle  is  publishing  (a 
sixpenny  matter)  in  favor  of  the  slave-trade.  Novelists  of  all  shades 
are  plying  their  trades.  Husbands  are  killing  their  wives  in 
every  day's  newspaper.  Burglars  are  peaching  against  each  other  ; 
there  is  no  longer  honor  among  thieves.  I  am  starting  for  Leicester 
on  a  week's  expedition  amidst  the  mad  people  ;  and  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  has  crossed  the  Pruth,  and  intends  to  make  a  tour  of  Turkey. 

"  All  this  appears  to  me  little  better  than  idle,  restless  vanity.  0 
my  friend,  what  a  fuss  and  a  pother  we  are  all  making,  we  little  flies 
who  are  going  round  on  the  great  wheel  of  time  !  To-day  we  are 
flickering  and  buzzing  about,  our  little  bits  of  wings  glittering  in  the 
sunshine,  and  to-morrow  we  are  safe  enough  in  the  little  crevice  at 
the  back  of  the  fireplace,  or  hid  in  the  folds  of  the  old  curtain,  shut 
up,  stiff  and  torpid,  for  the  long  winter.  What  do  you  say  to  that 
profound  reflection  1 

"  I  struggle  against  the  lassitude  which  besets  me,  and  strive  in 
vain  to  be  either  sensible  or  jocose.     I  had  better  say  farewell." 
18 


410  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 

On  Christmas  day,  1854,  he  writes  in  rather  flagging 
spirits,  induced  by  ill  health  :  — 

"  I  have  owed  you  a  letter  for  these  many  months,  my  good  friend. 
I  am  afraid  to  think  how  long,  lest  the  interest  on  the  debt  should 
have  exceeded  the  capital,  and  be  beyond  my  power  to  pay. 

"  You  must  be  good-natured  and  excuse  me,  for  I  have  been  ill  — 
very  frequently  —  and  dispirited.  A  bodily  complaint  torments 
me,  that  has  tormented  me  for  the  last  two  years.  I  no  longer  look 
at  the  world  through  a  rose-colored  glass.  The  prospect,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  is  gray,  grim,  dull,  barren,  full  of  withered  leaves, 
without  flowers,  or  if  there  be  any,  all  of  them  trampled  down, 
soiled,  discolored,  and  without  fragrance.  You  see  what  a  bit  of  half- 
smoked  glass  I  am  looking  through.  At  all  events,  you  must  see  how 
.entirely  I  am  disabled  from  returning,  except  in  sober  sentences,  the 
lively  and  good-natured  letters  and  other  things  which  you  have  sent 
me  from  America.  They  were  welcome,  and  I  thank  you  for  them 
now,  in  a  few  words,  as  you  observe,  but  sincerely.  I  am  somewhat 
brief,  even  in  my  gratitude.  Had  I  been  in  braver  spirits,  I  might 
have  spurred  my  poor  Pegasus,  and  sent  you  some  lines  on  the 
Alma,  or  the  Inkerman,  —  bloody  battles,  but  exhibiting  marks  not 
to  be  mistaken  of  the  old  English  heroism,  which,  after  all  is  said 
about  the  enervating  effects  of  luxury,  is  as  grand  and  manifest  as 
in  the  ancient  fights  which  English  history  talks  of  so  much.  Even 
you,  sternest  of  republicans,  will,  I  think,  be  proud  of  the  indomi- 
table courage  of  Englishmen,  and  gladly  refer  to  your  old  paternity 
I,  at  least,  should  be  proud  of  Americans  fighting  after  the  same 
fashion  (and  without  doubt  they  would  fight  thus),  just  as  old  peo- 
ple exult  in  the  brave  conduct  of  their  runaway  sons.  I  cannot 
read  of  these  later  battles  without  the  tears  coming  into  my  eyes- 
It  is  said  by  '  our  correspondent '  at  New  York  that  the  folks  there 
rejoice  in  the  losses  and  disasters  of  the  allies.  This  can  never  be 
the  case,  surely  ?  No  one  whose  opinion  'is  worth  a  rap  can  rejoice 
at  any  success  of  the  Czar,  whose  double-dealing  and  unscrupulous 
greediness  must  have  rendered  him  an  object  of  loathing  to  every 
well-thinking  man.  But  what  have  I  to  do  with  politics,  or  you  1 
Our  '  pleasant  object  and  serene  employ '  are  books,  books.  Let  us 
return  to  pacific  thoughts. 

"  What  a  number  of  things  have  happened  since  I  saw  you !  1 
looked  for  you  in  the  last  spring,  little  dreaming  that  so  fat  and 
flourishing  a  '  Statesman '  could  be  overthrown  by  a  little  fever.  I 
had  even  begun  some  doggerel,  announcing  to  you  the  advent  ot  the 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.    41 1 

white-bait,  which  I  imagined  were  likely  to  be  all  eaten  up  in  your 
absence.  My  memory  is  so  bad  that  I  cannot  recollect  half  a  dozen 
lines,  probably  not  one,  as  it  originally  stood. 

"  I  was  at  Liverpool  last  June.  After  two  or  three  attempts  I 
contrived  to  seize  on  the  famous  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  Need  I 
say  that  I  like  him  very  much  ?  He  is  very  sensible,  very  genial,  — 
a  little  shy,  I  think  (for  an  American !)  —  and  altogether  extremely 
agreeable.  I  wish  that  I  could  see  more  of  him,  but  our  orbits  are 
wide  apart.  Now  and  then  —  once  in  two  years  —  I  diverge  into 
and  cross  his  circle,  but  at  other  times  we  are  separated  by  a  space 
amounting  to  210  miles.  He  has  three  children,  and  a  nice  little 
wife,  who  has  good-humor  engraved  on  her  countenance. 

"  As  to  verse  —  yes,  I  have  begun  a  dozen  trifling  things,  which 
are  in  my  drawer  unfinished  ;  poor  rags  with  ink  upon  them,  none 
of  them,  I  am  afraid,  properly  labelled  for  posterity.  I  was  for  six 
weeks  at  Ryde,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  this  year,  but  so  unwell  that  I 
could  not  write  a  line,  scarcely  read  one  ;  sitting  out  in  the  sun, 
eating,  drinking,  sleeping,  and  sometimes  (poor  soul  !)  imagining  I 
was  thinking.  One  Sunday  I  saw  a  magnificent  steamer  go  by,  and 
on  placing  my  eye  to  the  telescope  I  saw  some  Stars  and  Stripes 
(streaming  from  the  mast-head)  that  carried  me  away  to  Boston. 
By  the  way,  when  will  you  finish  the  bridge  ? 

"  I  hear  strange  hints  of  you  all  quarrelling  about  the  slave  ques- 
tion. Is  it  so  ?  You  are  so  happy  and  prosperous  in  America  that 
you  must  be  on  the  lookout  for  clouds,  surely  !  When  you  see 
Emerson,  Longfellow,  Sumner,  any  one  I  know,  pray  bespeak  for 
me  a  kind  thought  or  word  from  them." 

Procter  was  always  on  the  lookout  for  Hawthorne, 
whom  he  greatly  admired.  In  November,  1855,  he  says, 
in  a  brief  letter  :  — 

"  I  have  not  seen  Hawthorne  since  I  wrote  to  you.  He  came  to 
London  this  summer,  but,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  did  not  inquire  for  me. 
As  it  turned  out,  I  was  absent  from  town,  but  sent  him  (by  Mrs. 
Russell  Sturgis)  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Leigh  Hunt,  who  was 
very  much  pleased  with  him.  Poor  Hunt !  he  is  the  most  genial 
of  men  ;  and,  now  that  his  wife  is  confined  to  her  bed  by  rheuma- 
tism, is  recovering  himself,  and,  I  hope,  doing  well.  He  asked  to 
come  and  see  me  the  other  day.  I  willingly  assented,  and  when  I 
saw  him  —  grown  old  and  sad  and  broken  down  in  health  —  all  my 
ancient  liking  for  him  revived. 


412  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

"  You  ask  me  to  send  you  some  verse.  I  accordingly  send  you  a 
scrap  of  recent  manufacture,  and  you  will  observe  that  instead  of 
forwarding  my  epic  on  Sevastopol,  I  select  something  that  is  fitter 
for  these  present  vernal  love  days  than  the  bluster  of  heroic  verse : — 

"  SONG. 

"Within  the  chambers  of  her  breast 
Love  lives  and  makes  his  spicy  nest, 
Midst  downy  blooms  and  fragrant  flowers, 
And  there  he  dreams  away  the  hours  — 

There  let  him  rest  ! 
Some  time  hence,  when  the  cuckoo  sings, 
I  '11  come  by  night  and  bind  his  wings,  — 
Bind  him  that  he  shall  not  roam 
From  his  warm  white  virgin  home. 


'&1 


"  Maiden  of  the  summer  season, 
Angel  of  the  rosy  time, 
Come,  unless  some  graver  reason 

Bid  thee  scorn  my  rhyme  ; 
Come  from  thy  serener  height, 
On  a  golden  cloud  descending, 
Come  ere  Love  hath  taken  flight, 
And  let  thy  stay  be  like  the  light, 
When  its  glory  hath  no  ending 
In  the  Northern  night  !  " 


'n1 


Now  and  then  we  get  a  glimpse  of  Thackeray  in  his 
letters.     In  one  of  them  he  says  :  — 

"  Thackeray  came  a  few  clays  ago  and  read  one  of  his  lectures  at 
our  house  (that  on  George  the  Third),  and  we  asked  about  a  dozen 
persons  to  come  and  hear  it,  among  the  rest,  your  handsome  coun- 
trywoman, Mrs.  R S .     It  was  very  pleasant,  with  that 

agreeable  intermixture  of  tragedy  and  comedy  that  tells  so  well 
when  judiciously  managed.  He  will  not  print  them  for  some  time 
to  come,  intending  to  read  them  at  some  of  the  principal  places  in 
England,  and  perhaps  Scotland. 

"  What  are  you  doing  in  America  ?  You  are  too  happy  and  inde- 
pendent !  '  O  fortunatos  Agricolas,  sua  si  bona  norint ! '  I  am  not 
quite  sure  of  my  Latin  (which  is  rusty  from  old  age),  but  I  am  sure 
of  the  sentiment,  which  is  that  when  people  are  too  happy,  they 
don't  know  it,  and  so  take  to  quarrelling  to  relieve  the  monotony 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     413 

of  their  blue  sky.     Some  of  these  days  you  will  split  your  great 
kingdom  in  two,  I  suppose,  and  then  — 

"  My  wife's  mother,  Mrs.  Basil  Montagu,  is  very  ill,  and  we  are 
apprehensive  of  a  fatal  result,  which,  in  truth,  the  mere  fact  of  her 
age  (eighty-two  or  eighty-three)  is  enough  to  warrant.  Ah,  this 
terrible  age !  The  young  people,  I  dare  say,  think  that  we  live  too 
long.  Yet  how  short  it  is  to  look  back  on  life  !  Why,  I  saw  the 
house  the  other  day  where  I  used  to  play  with  a  wooden  sword 
when  I  was  five  years  old  !  It  cannot  surely  be  eighty  years  ago  ! 
What  has  occurred  since  1  Why,  nothing  that  is  worth  putting 
down  on  paper.  A  few  nonsense  verses,  a  flogging  or  two  (richly 
deserved),  and  a  few  white-bait  dinners,  and  the  whole  is  reckoned 
up.  Let  us  begin  again."  [Here  he  makes  some  big  letters  in  a 
school-boy  hand,  which  have  a  very  pathetic  look  on  the  page.] 

In  a  letter  written  in  1856  he  gives  me  a  graphic  pic- 
ture of  sad  times  in  India :  — 

"  All  our  anxiety  here  at  present  is  the  Indian  mutiny.  We  our- 
selves have  great  cause  for  trouble.  Our  son  (the  only  son  I  have, 
indeed)  escaped  from  Delhi  lately.  He  is  now  at  Meerut.  He  and 
four  or  five  other  officers,  four  women,  and  a  child  escaped.  The 
men  were  obliged  to  drop  the  women  a  fearful  height  from  the  walls 
of  the  fort,  amidst  showers  of  bullets,  A  round  shot  passed  within 
a  yard  of  my  son,  and  one  of  the  ladies  had  a  bullet  through  her 
shoulder.  They  were  seven  days  and  seven  nights  in  the  jungle, 
without  money  or  meat,  scarcely  any  clothes,  no  shoes.  They  forded 
rivers,  lay  on  the  wet  ground  at  night,  lapped  water  from  the  pud- 
dles, and  finally  reached  Meerut.  The  lady  (the  mother  of  the  three 
other  ladies)  had  not  her  wound  dressed,  or  seen,  indeed,  for  upward 
of  a  week.  Their  feet  were  full  of  thorns.  My  son  had  nothing 
but  a  shirt,  a  pair  of  trousers,  and  a  flannel  waistcoat.  How  they 
contrived  to  live  I  don't  know  ;  I  suppose  from  small  gifts  of  rice, 
etc.,  from  the  natives. 

"  When  I  find  any  little  thing  now  that  disturbs  my  serenity,  and 
which  I  might  in  former  times  have  magnified  into  an  evil,  I  think 
of  what  Europeans  suffer  from  the  vengeance  of  the  Indians,  and 
pass  it  by  in  quiet. 

"  I  received  Mr.  Hillard's  epitaph  on  my  dear  kind  friend  Ken- 
yon.  Thank  him  in  my  name  for  it.  There  are  some  copies  to  be 
reserved  of  a  lithograph  now  in  progress  (a  portrait  of  Kenyon)  for 
his  American  friends.     Should  it  be  completed  in  time,  Mr.  Sum- 


414  YESTERDAYS    WITH  AUTHORS. 

ner  will  be  asked  to  take  them  over.     I  have  put  down  your  name 
for  one  of  those  who  would  wish  to  have  this  little  memento  of  a 

good  kind  man 

"  I  shall  never  visit  America,  be  assured,  or  the  continent  of  Eu- 
rope, or  any  distant  region.  I  have  reached  nearly  to  the  length  of 
my  tether.  I  have  grown  old  and  apathetic  and  stupid.  All  I  care 
for,  in  the  way  of  personal  enjoyment,  is  quiet,  ease,  —  to  have 
nothing  to  do,  nothing  to  think  of.  My  only  glance  is  backward. 
There  is  so  little  before  me  that  I  would  rather  not  look  that  way." 

In  a  later  letter  he  again  speaks  of  his  son  and  the  war 
in  India :  — 

"  My  son  is  not  in  the  list  of  killed  and  wounded,  thank  God  ! 
He  was  before  Delhi,  having  volunteered  thither  after  his  escape. 
We  trust  that  he  is  at  present  safe,  but  every  mail  is  pregnant  with 
bloody  tidings,  and  we  do  not  find  ourselves  yet  in  a  position  to 
rejoice  securely.  What  a  terrible  war  this  Indian  war  is  !  Are  all 
people  of  black  blood  cruel,  cowardly,  and  treacherous  ?  If  it  were 
a  case  of  great  oppression  on  our  part,  I  could  understand  and  (al- 
most) excuse  it  ;  but  it  is  from  the  spoiled  portion  of  the  Hindos- 
tanees  that  the  revengeful  mutiny  has  arisen.  One  thing  is  quite 
clear,  that  whatever  luxury  and  refinement  have  done  for  our  race 
(for  I  include  Americans  with  English),  they  have  not  diminished 
the  courage  and  endurance  and  heroism  for  which  I  think  we  have 
formerly  been  famous.  We  are  the  same  Saxons  still.  There  has 
never  been  fiercer  fighting  than  in  some  of  the  battles  that  have 
lately  taken  place  in  India.  When  I  look  back  on  the  old  history 
books,  and  see  that  all  history  consists  of  little  else  than  the  bloody 
feuds  of  nation  with  nation,  I  almost  wonder  that  God  has  not  ex- 
tinguished the  cruel,  selfish  animals  that  we  dignify  with  the  name 
of  men.  No  —  I  cry  forgiveness  :  let  the  women  live,  if  they  can, 
without  the  men.     I  used  the  word  '  men '  only." 

Here  is  a  pleasant  paragraph  about  "Aurora  Leigh":  — 

"  The  most  successful  book  of  the  season  has  been  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's '  Aurora  Leigh.'  I  could  wish  some  things  altered,  I  confess  ; 
but  as  it  is,  it  is  by  far  (a  hundred  times  over)  the  finest  poem  ever 
written  by  a  woman.  We  know  little  or  nothing  of  Sappho,  — 
nothing  to  induce  comparison,  —  and  all  other  wearers  of  petticoats 
must  courtesy  to  the  ground." 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     415 

In  several  of  his  last  letters  to  me  there  are  frequent 
allusions  to  our  civil  war.  Here  is  an  extract  from  an 
epistle  written  in  1861:  — 

"  We  read  with  painful  attention  the  accounts  of  your  great  quar- 
rel in  America.  We  know  nothing  beyond  what  we  are  told  by  the 
New  York  papers,  and  these  are  the  stories  of  one  of  the  combatants. 
I  am  afraid  that,  however  you  may  mend  the  schism,  you  will  never 
be  so  strong  again.  I  hope,  however,  that  something  may  arise  to 
terminate  the  bloodshed  ;  for,  after  all,  fighting  is  an  unsatisfactory 
way  of  coming  at  the  truth.  If  you  were  to  stand  up  at  once  (and 
finally)  against  the  slave-trade,  your  band  of  soldiers  would  have  a 
more  decided  principle  to  tight  for.     But  — 

*  —  But  I  really  know  little  or  nothing.  I  hope  that  at  Boston 
you  are  comparatively  peaceful,  and  I  know  that  you  are  more  abo- 
litionist than  in  the  more  southern  countries. 

"  There  is  nothing  new  doing  here  in  the  way  of  books.  The  last 
book  I  have  seen  is  called  '  Tannlniuser,'  published  by  Chapman 
and  Hall,  —  a  poem  under  feigned  names,  but  really  written  by 
Robert  Lytton  and  Julian  Fane.  It  is  not  good  enough  for  the 
first,  but  (as  I  conjecture)  too  good  for  the  last.  The  songs  which 
decide  the  contest  of  the  bards  are  the  worst  portions  of  the  book. 

"  I  read  some  time  ago  a  novel  which  has  not  made  much  noise, 
but  which  is  prodigiously  clever,  —  '  City  and  Suburb.'  The  story 
hangs  in  parts,  but  it  is  full  of  weighty  sentences.  We  have  no  poet 
since  Tennyson  except  Robert  Lytton,  who,  you  know,  calls  him- 
self Owen  Meredith.  Poetry  in  England  is  assuming  a  new  charac- 
ter, and  not  a  better  character.  It  has  a  sort  of  pre-Raphaelite  ten- 
dency which  does  not  suit  my  aged  feelings.  I  am  for  Love,  or  the 
World  well  lost.  But  I  forget  that,  if  I  live  beyond  the  21st  of  next 
November,  I  shall  be  seventy-four  years  of  age.  I  have  been  obliged 
to  resign  my  Commissionership  of  Lunacy,  not  being  able  to  bear 
the  pain  of  travelling.  By  this  I  lose  about  ,£900  a  year.  I  am. 
therefore,  sufficiently  poor,  even  for  a  poet.  Browning,  as  you 
know,  has  lost  his  wife.  He  is  coming  with  his  little  boy  to  live  in 
England.  I  rejoice  at  this,  for  I  think  that  the  English  should  live 
in  England,  especially  in  their  youth,  when  people  learn  things  that 
they  never  forget  afterward." 

Near  the  close  of  1864  he  writes  :  — 

"  Since  I  last  heard  from  you,  nothing  except  what  is  melancholy 


416  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 


seems  to  have  taken  place.  You  seem  all  busy  killing  each  other 
in  America.  Some  friends  of  yours  and  several  friends  of  mine 
have  died.  Among  the  last  I  cannot  help  placing  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne, for  whom  I  had  a  sincere  regard He  was  about  your 

best  prose  writer,  I  think,  and  intermingled  with  his  humor  was  a 
great  deal  of  tenderness.     To  die  so  soon  ! 

"  You  are  so  easily  affronted  in  America,  if  we  (English)  say  any- 
thing about  putting  an  end  to  your  war,  that  I  will  not  venture  to 
hint  at  the  subject.  Nevertheless,  I  wish  that  you  were  all  at  peace 
again,  for  your  own  sakes  and  for  the  sake  of  human  nature.  I 
detest  fighting  now,  although  I  was  a  great  admirer  of  fighting  in 
my  youth.  My  youth  1  I  wonder  where  it  has  gone.  It  has  left 
me  with  gray  hairs  and  rheumatism,  and  plenty  of  (too  many  other) 
infirmities.  I  stagger  and  stumble  along,  with  almost  seventy-six 
years  on  my  head,  upon  failing  limbs,  which  no  longer  enable  me 
to  walk  half  a  mile.  I  see  a  great  deal,  all  behind  me  (the  Past), 
but  the  prospect  before  me  is  not  cheerful.  Sometimes  I  wish  that 
I  had  tried  harder  for  what  is  called  Fame,  but  generally  (as  now) 
I  care  very  little  about  it.  After  all,  —  unless  one  could  be  Shake- 
speare, which  (clearly)  is  not  an  easy  matter,  —  of  what  value  is  a 
little  puff  of  smoke  from  a  review  ?  If  we  could  settle  permanently 
who  is  to  be  the  Homer  or  Shakespeare  of  our  time,  it  might  be 

worth  something  ;  but  we  cannot.     Is  it  Jones,  or  Smith,  or ? 

Alas  !  I  get  short-sighted  on  this  point,  and  cannot  penetrate  the 
impenetrable  dark.  Make  my  remembrances  acceptable  to  Long- 
fellow, to  Lowell,  to  Emerson,  and  to  any  one  else  who  remembers 
me.  Yours,  ever  sincerely, 

"  B.  W.  Procter." 

And  here  are  a  few  paragraphs  from  the  last  letter  I 
ever  received  in  Procter's  loving  hand :  — 

"  Although  I  date  this  from  Weymouth  Street,  yet  I  am  writing 
140  or  150  miles  away  from  London.  Perhaps  this  temporary  re- 
treat from  our  great,  noisy,  turbulent  city  reminds  me  that  I  have 
been  very  unmindful  of  your  letter,  received  long  ago.  But  I  have 
been  busy,  and  my  writing  now  is  not  a  simple  matter,  as  it  was 
fifty  years  ago.  I  have  great  difficulty  in  forming  the  letters,  and 
you  would  be  surprised  to  learn  with  what  labor  this  task  is  per- 
formed. Then  I  have  been  incessantly  occupied  in  writing  (I  refer 
to  the  mechanical  part  only)  the  '  Memoir  of  Charles  Lamb.'  It  is 
not  my  book,  —  i.  e.  not  my  property,  —  but  one  which  I  was  hired 


"BARRY  CORNWALL"  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.    417 

to  write,  and  it  forms  my  last  earnings.  You  will  have  heard  of 
the  book  (perhaps  seen  it)  some  time  since.  It  has  been  very  well 
received.  I  would  not  have  engaged  myself  on  anything  else,  but 
I  had  great  regard  for  Charles  Lamb,  and  so  (somehow  or  other)  I 
have  contrived  to  reach  the  end. 

"  I  have  already  (long  ago)  written  something  about  Hazlitt,  but  I 
have  received  more  than  one  application  for  it,  in  case  I  can  manage 
to  complete  my  essay.  As  in  the  case  of  Lamb,  I  am  really  the  only 
person  living  who  knew  much  about  his  daily  life.  I  have  not, 
however,  quite  the  same  incentive  to  carry  me  on.  Indeed,  I  am  not 
certain  that  I  should  be  able  to  travel  to  the  real  Finis. 

"  My  wife  is  very  grateful  for  the  copies  of  my  dear  Adelaide's 
poems  which  you  sent  her.  She  appears  surprised  to  hear  that  I 
have  not  transmitted  her  thanks  to  you  before. 

"  We  get  the  '  Atlantic  Monthly  '  regularly.  I  need  not  tell  you 
how  much  better  the  poetry  is  than  at  its  commencement.  Very 
good  is  '  Released,'  in  the  July  number,  and  several  of  the  stories  ; 
but  they  are  in  London,  and  I  cannot  particularize  them. 

"'We  were  very  much  pleased  with  Colonel  Holmes,  the  son  of 
your  friend  and  contributor.  He  seems  a  very  intelligent,  modest 
young  man  ;  as  little  military  as  need  be,  and,  like  Coriolanus,  not 
baring  his  wounds  (if  he  has  any)  for  public  gaze.  When  you 
see  Dr.  Holmes,  pray  tell  him  how  much  I  and  my  wife  liked 
his  son. 

"  We  are  at  the  present  moment  rusticating  at  Malvern  Wells. 
We  are  on  the  side  of  a  great  hill  (which  you  would  call  small  in 
America),  and  our  intercourse  is  only  with  the  flowers  and  bees  and 
swallows  of  the  season.  Sometimes  we  encounter  a  wasp,  which  I 
suppose  comes  from  over  seas ! 

"  The  Storys  are  living  two  or  three  miles  off,  and  called  upon  us 
a  few  days  ago.  You  have  not  seen  his  Sibyl,  which  I  think  very 
fine,  and  as  containing  a  very  great  future.  But  the  young  poets 
generally  disappoint  us,  and  are  too  content  with  startling  us  into 
admiration  of  their  first  works,  and  then  go  to  sleep. 

"  I  wish  that  I  had,  when  younger,  made  more  notes  about  my  con- 
temporaries ;  for,  being  of  no  faction  in  politics,  it  happens  that  I 
have  known  far  more  literary  men  than  any  other  person  of  my  time. 
In  counting  up  the  names  of  persons  known  to  me  who  were,  in 
some  way  or  other,  connected  with  literature,  I  reckoned  up  more 
than  one  hundred.  But  then  I  have  had  more  than  sixty  years  to 
do  this  in.  My  first  acquaintance  of  this  sort  was  Bowles,  the  poet. 
This  was  about  1805. 

18*  AA 


4x8  YESTERDAYS   WITH  AUTHORS. 

"  Although  I  can  scarcely  write,  I  am  able  to  say,  in  conclusion, 
that  I  am 

"  Very  sincerely  yours, 

"  B.  W.  Procter. 


Procter  was  an  ardent  student  of  the  works  of  our  older 
English  dramatists,  and  he  had  a  special  fondness  for  such 
writers  as  Decker,  Marlowe,  Heywood,  Webster,  and 
Fletcher.  Many  of  his  own  dramatic  scenes  are  modelled 
on  that  passionate  and  romantic  school.  He  had  great 
relish  for  a  good  modern  novel,  too  ;  and  I  recall  the  titles 
of  several  which  he  recommended  warmly  for  my  perusal 
and  republication  in  America.  When  I  first  came  to  know 
him,  the  duties  of  his  office  as  a  Commissioner  obliged  him 
to  travel  about  the  kingdom,  sometimes  on  long  journeys, 
and  he  told  me  his  pocket  companion  was  a  cheap  reprint 
of  Emerson's  "  Essays,"  which  he  found  such  agreeable 
reading  that  he  never  left  home  without  it.  Longfellow's 
"  Hyperion  "  was  another  of  his  favorite  books  during  the 
years  he  was  on  duty. 

Among  the  last  agreeable  visits  I  made  to  the  old  poet 
was  one  with  reference  to  a  proposition  of  his  own  to  omit 
several  songs  and  other  short  poems  from  a  new  issue  of 
his  works  then  in  press.  I  stoutly  opposed  the  ignoring 
of  certain  old  favorites  of  mine,  and  the  poet's  wife  joined 
with  me  in  deciding  against  the  author  in  his  proposal  to 
cast  aside  so  many  beautiful  songs,  —  songs  as  well  worth 
saving  as  any  in  the  volume.  Procter  argued  that,  being 
past  seventy,  he  had  now  reached  to  years  of  discretion, 
and  that  his  judgment  ought  to  be  followed  without  a 
murmur.  I  held  out  firm  to  the  end  of  our  discussion, 
and  we  settled  the  matter  with  this  compromise :  he  was 
to  expunge  whatever  he  chose  from  the  English  edition, 
but  I  was  to  have  my  own  way  with  the  American  one. 
So  to  this  day  the  American  reprint  is  the  only  complete 


"BARRY   CORNWALL"   AND  HIS  FRIENDS.     419 

collection  of  Barry  Cornwall's  earliest  pieces,  for  I  held 
on  to  all  the  old  lyrics,  without  discarding  a  single  line. 

The  poet's  figure  was  short  and  full,  and  his  voice  had  a 
low,  veiled  tone  habitually  in  it,  which  made  it  sometimes 
difficult  to  hear  distinctly  what  he  was  saying.  When  in 
conversation,  he  liked  to  be  very  near  his  listener,  and 
thus  stand,  as  it  were,  on  confidential  ground  with  him. 
His  turn  of  thought  was  cheerful  among  his  friends,  and 
he  proceeded  readily  into  a  vein  of  wit  and  nimble  ex- 
pression. Verbal  felicity  seemed  natural  to  him,  and  his 
epithets,  evidently  unprepared,  were  always  perfect.  He 
disliked  cant  and  hard  ways  of  judging  character.  He 
praised  easily.  He  had  no  wish  to  stand  in  anybody's 
shoes  but  his  own,  and  he  said,  "  There  is  no  literary  vice 
of  a  darker  shade  than  envy."  Talleyrand's  recipe  for 
perfect  happiness  was  the  opposite  to  his.  He  impressed 
every  one  who  came  near  him  as  a  born  gentleman,  chival- 
rous and  generous  in  a  marked  degree,  and  it  was  the 
habit  of  those  who  knew  him  to  have  an  affection  for  him. 
Altering  a  line  of  Pope,  this  counsel  might  have  been  safely 
tendered  to  all  the  authors  of  his  day,  — 

"  Disdain  whatever  Procter's  mind  disdains." 


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